Lost In Translation
by TheDhampir
Summary: Sequel to The Story of Lilith Pierce and Factors Unknown. Four months after the events of Factors Unknown, Damon is dealing with Lilith's disappearace and Stefan's ripper-dom.
1. Four Months

**A/N**

**Hey! It's me! I'm back! Are you excited? I am. This. Is my longest chapter. EVER. 7132 words without ANs. This is awesome! Thanks to all of you who came back to my horribly written (in the beginning) saga, and I hope you enjoy!**

**A special thank you to GoldenQueenOfTheCove, my amazing beta and best friend!**

Lost In Translation  
Chapter One: Four Months

It had been four months. Four months since he lay on his deathbed as Stefan sacrificed himself for the cure. Four months since he had even received any news about where his daughter might be. Four months since he had broken down because all he had left of her was a shoe.

Four months of not knowing. Four months of panic. Four months of following Stefan's footsteps into hundreds of dead-ends. Four months of searching for answers that don't exist.

Elena promised they'd find her, but what if they didn't? He felt like a little kid again, not sure if the promises were real or if they were just lies to help him sleep at night – not that he slept much anyway. Every day passed the same way; wake up, manage to put a smile on his face and make a joke or two, try to fall asleep and get an hour in if he's lucky, then wake up and do it all over again.

Four months of the same routine, repeated more times than he cared to count, ingrained into his mind deeper than the need for blood was.

He was numb, barely allowing himself to feel. On the rare occasion that he did let himself show a sliver of emotion, it was around Elena or Andie; Andie Starr, the woman who tried to understand, and Elena Gilbert, the girl who did.

This happened to be one of those occasions.

Damon Salvatore sat in bubbles up to his chest, and empty glass of champagne – the only form of alcohol Andie would let him have as of late – in his hand. "We're out of champagne," he sighed.

Andie tucked a curl behind her ear. "No," exasperation filled the single syllable. How he'd managed to down two bottles of champagne in less than half an hour was beyond her knowledge. "_You're_ out of champagne; I don't drink in the morning."

Damon sighed and set the glass on the ground, a small mound of bubbles sliding to the base. He stood slowly, allowing his ears to absorb the near silence of water droplets colliding with the tile as he walked out of the bathroom. "Oh, come on," he heard Andie's voice float toward him. "I mean, you're dripping a little."

"Mm-hmm," he hummed, strutting his way toward the staircase. The front door closed as he hit the bottom step, Elena's half-put-up ponytail bobbing out of his line of sight. His silent footsteps carried him through the doorway the human had just disappeared through. "Morning," Damon said nonchalantly, a small smile gracing his previously blank composure.

She finished putting her hair up before turning toward him, speaking as she did so. "Hey; I just – oh my gosh!" Elena's back was to him a second later.

"You should really learn to knock; what if I was _indecent_?" There it was; the daily witty, sarcastic mask she expected of him.

The annoyance in her voice was obvious when she spoke again. "You heard me; you knew I was here."

He shrugged, knowing full well she couldn't see the gesture, and put his hand up with a full three seconds to spare in catching the towel flung at him. "You're early." Damon stated. "Has there been any news?" The question was quiet and hesitant, the ever-nagging fear of bad news resurfacing for the first time in days.

Elena shook her head and turned to face him, satisfied with the towel's new position around his waist. "I don't know if it's news as much as a lead." She pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket. "Tennessee."

He was standing in front of her before the final syllable was out of her mouth, tearing the paper from her hand. "And you think this might be it, the missing puzzle piece we've been waiting four months for that will lead us to Stefan?"

"Damon," Elena's voice was clipped, four months of stress piled on top of birthday preparations and lack of sleep adding to her annoyance.

The vampire in question sighed. "Well? That's what you thought last week, and the week before that, and the week before that. Why is this time any different?"

Elena frowned. "Damon, I understand you're worried about Lilith, I'd be the same way if it were Jeremy –"

"No, you wouldn't." He interrupted her and walked over to the table, slamming a fist down. "Nothing about the situation is the same. Yeah, you'd be worried; yeah, he's out alone in a world full of vampires and werewolves, but at least he knows you'd be okay. He and Alaric didn't even know about the cure until they called us _after_ she disappeared. What if – what if she thinks – in her mind, I'm _dead_. The cure is a foreign concept. She wouldn't come back. She has nothing to come back to."

"Damon–" the doppelganger's attempts to calm him were lost in the tense air as he continued.

"That's not even all of it," was the only thing he said that even hinted that he'd heard her. "What if we find her?" The vague question hung in the air as Elena waited for him to explain. "What if Klaus got to here? What if we find _her_?" That's when the true meaning of the question sunk in, the unspoken final word increasing the tension in the room. Damon continued after taking a breath. "At least you know Jeremy well enough to write a eulogy."

*LIT*

It had been four months. Four months since her uncle had killed her and began her transition. Four months since she'd chosen to complete the turn. Four months since Klaus had tracked down the nearest witch to make her a daylight ring. Four months since Stefan had revealed to her that the cure did, in fact, exist, but hadn't reached the boarding house in time.

Four months of denial mixed with grief.

"Because we have nowhere else to go," her ripper uncle explained as she asked why they were with Klaus for the third time that car ride. The hybrid let out a low chuckle from the driver's seat. "Nearly everyone we know is dead; I have no one left."

The younger vampire rolled her eyes. "I love how you explained the part about you being here, but completely left out the part about me."

A frown crept over Stefan's features. "Can you _not_ make a sarcastic comment for five minutes? The eyes are enough of a reminder already."

Lilith's sarcastic demeanor melted away instantly and she sat back in her seat. "Sorry."

Klaus pulled into the parking lot of a bar called Southern Comfort – the destination given to them by two, now dead, women who were now west of their location.

A voice piped up from the back seat, Lilith asking the same question for the fourth time. "Why are we here? I mean, not like with-Klaus here, but _Tennessee _here."

"We need to stay off the grid." The original stepped out of the car and Lilith opened her door. "We can't be caught by the FBI now, can we?"

She rolled her eyes again. "But is the extent you're taking it really necessary? I mean, if we were any more _off the grid_, we would be in Ytterby."

Stefan's head popped up from the other side of the car and he shot his niece a confused look. "Where?"

The girl indicated to the ripper with her right and sighed out an "exactly" as Klaus turned to him and said "it's in Sweden."

"Am I even allowed in here? I'm only eighteen physically, a whole year older than Stefan. Neither of us are even technically permitted within fifty feet of the establishment. How old are _you_, Klaus; are we all illegally entering a "no minors" zone?" Lilith arched a brow as she questioned him, stepping in front of the hybrid to wait for an answer.

Klaus chuckled and shook his head. "_That_, Rippah's Niece, is why compulsion is such a marvelous thing." A predatory grin was plastered on his face as he followed a man inside. "Now, I ask, have you ever hunted wolves?"

Ten minutes later, Stefan suggested a _friendly_ game of "Truth or Wolfsbane," causing his niece to take a few steps towards the door. "Where do you think you're going?" Their Original travelling companion asked her, grabbing her arm. "You can't just leave after four months."

"I didn't want to be here in the first place." She growled, tugging her arm out of Klaus's grip. "It's a free country; I can leave whenever I want."

Lilith was halfway out the door, sun on her face and one foot on the asphalt outside, before he spoke again. "What if I told you that the cure would have gotten there in time if I hadn't been spending my time trying to track down Mr. Ray Sutton?" She froze and, after taking a deep breath and clearing her thoughts, spun around to face the hybrid. "Now, come join us."

The bar was silent as the girl stomped toward the dart board that the werewolf had been secured in front of. She snatched the dart from her uncle's hand and twirled the tip around in a glass of wolfsbane diluted in water. Lilith jerked her arm back, as if she were elbowing someone in the chest, and let the metallic spear fly. A moment later, it was embedded in Ray's shoulder.

Klaus's predatory grin returned. "Welcome to the dark side." He walked over to her and lazily slung his arm over her shoulder. "We've been expecting you."

*LIT*

Vampire and hunter stood outside an old house in Tennessee, the white SUV behind them still cool from the air conditioning being on for the entire three hour drive. "Why are we here, exactly?" Alaric Saltzman asked, putting the keys in his pocket.

Damon shrugged from his spot near the fence. "I told Elena I'd look into the half-lead."

"They're all half leads," the history teacher complained. "And I'm your accomplice." Damon's half-smile didn't reach his eyes. "You don't want to be here." His friend pointed out. It was a statement rather than a question, a quiet observation he'd made before they even got in the car.

The vampire shrugged again. "No, I don't. I'd much rather be tracking down my daughter who can't defend herself against Klaus than follow more of the footsteps of my brother who made a deal with him." He frowned and began walking toward the house. "But, I did tell Elena I'd follow up on her lead, and that's exactly what I'm doing."

Alaric shook his head. "I know you like Elena and all, but you shouldn't go to such lengths against your will." The human's footsteps on the dirt sounded like someone punching a pillow with boxing gloves on.

"It's not entirely against my will." Damon pushed the door open, ignoring the creak the old hinges made with the motion. Blood covered the walls like a second coat of paint, the sun shining in and reflecting off of it and casting everything in an eerie, red glow. "He always was a messy eater." The dark-haired vampire commented before sighing. "Stefan, Stefan, Stefan."

The human stared at the crimson walls in horrified awe. "_Stefan_ did this? I thought he was all about eating the Easter Bunny and Santa's Reindeer, and caring about a human's life more than Barney Stinson cares about suits, not going through humans faster than the people in Contagion went through body bags." A light breeze drifted through the still open door and carried the stench of death back out.

"There're a lot of things people think they know about my baby brother." Damon continued walking through the house, undeterred by his brother's ripper tendencies. "Like, for instance, his favorite movie is Push, his favorite book series is Twilight, and he cries whenever he watches Titanic."

Alaric followed him slowly, cringing away from the blood soaked walls. "Don't you cry when you watch Titanic?"

The vampire sent him a short glare. "That's beside the point." He led the history teacher to a room in the back of the house, pausing in the doorway when the two torn up girls on the couch entered his line of sight. "You know Ric, there's a reason they call him The Ripper."

*LIT*

The car pulled into the driveway of the nicest foreclosure in Silver City. It was a very plain house – a pale green exterior with a white trim and the front door made almost entirely of unpainted oak wood. All in all, the house was very different from what the girl was accustomed to.

"I don't like it." She complained to her mother, taming her chocolate curls with a hair-tie and shrugging into a jean jacket.

Her mother's own chocolate ringlets bounced as she shook her head. "Your feelings about the house won't affect my decision." The woman's words were quick, as if she wanted to get them over with, and held a venomous tone that the girl hadn't heard in years.

The girl frowned and slouched back in her seat, causing her jacket to ride up. "Sorry," she muttered as her mother stepped out of the car.

"Apology accepted," the woman returned, walking toward the trunk. "And you'll only be staying here for a few weeks until I find out why Klaus turned your sister and you're both out of harm's way."

Her daughter stepped out of the car. "That doesn't seem fair." She mumbled. "_You're _the Petrova Doppelgänger; we're just guilty by association. It doesn't seem right for Klaus to come after us too."

"Nothing Klaus does is _right_, Ziela. I can't control what he does, and I can't control who he targets. He's going after Lilith because she dated his brother and she knows his weaknesses. She knows how to bring him down, and he's afraid that she'll act with her new strength." Katherine set the suitcase on the ground and slammed the trunk shut. "You heard the lies they've been telling her yourself. I can't just leave her there."

*LIT*

Another wolfsbane soaked dart danced from Lilith's fingertips into Ray's shoulder, not drawing any attention from the compelled patrons. "I'm going to ask you one more time," Klaus began as she twirled another dart around in the glass. "Where is the rest of your pack?"

A girl walked up behind the hybrid and whispered something Lilith couldn't quite catch. "Thank you, love," he told her before addressing his traveling companions. "Rippah, a word, please? Little Miss Darkside can keep Mr. Sutton busy."

Lilith frowned, slightly annoyed with her new nickname. At least it wasn't as much of a pet name as "Lili," or as plain Jane as "Rippah's Niece."

By the time Klaus returned to their interrogation, Ray had two more darts in his shoulders. "Lilith," he complained. "If you keep hurting him, we'll never get any information."

"Well, I got bored." She retorted, watching her uncle walk out of the establishment. "Where is my dearest Uncle Rippah off to?" Lilith asked, mimicking the hybrid's accent.

The original rolled his eyes. "Your _dearest Uncle Rippah_ is doing something for me whilst you assist in Mr. Sutton's torture." He frowned. "And I don't talk like that."

For the next few hours, Ray Sutton was bombarded with alternating darts and questions until he passed out from the pain. Even then, it was a while before either of them spoke. When a conversation finally started, it was short and had no opportunity to expand. "Hey, Klaus?"

He sighed and turned to her. "Yes, little Miss Darkside?"

"You totally talk like that."

*LIT*

He sat on the short wall of the balcony, shaken out of his pleasant conversation by a certain doppelgänger who walked up and took the glass out of his hand. "Jeremy's smoking again." Elena announced, taking a swig of bourbon and handing the glass back.

"Is his stash any good?"

For his comment, Damon Salvatore received a short glare and an annoyed "you're an ass."

The vampire sighed. "So what, Elena? He's lost more people than even you have; cut him some slack. Let's be honest with ourselves, I'm surprised I'm not in there with him."

A frown crept across the doppelgänger's face and she turned to face Alaric. "Can you talk to him; he listens to you."

The teacher shook his head as she walked back to the party. "You're screwed," Damon muttered, taking a drink. His phone went off and the vampire pulled it out. After a quick look at the screen, he sighed and stood up. "I have to go pick up Andie."

"Your fake girlfriend is expecting you to be a chivalrous boyfriend?" Alaric scoffed in disbelief.

Damon shrugged. "I've kept up appearances for four months, Ric; one more night won't kill me."

Though Alaric Saltzman was a history teacher, he was still a vampire hunter – and vampire hunters know when vampires are showing weakness. That's exactly what his friend was doing. "You haven't given up on finding her, have you?"

The vampire's glass shattered when it hit the ground, his hand in the same position, as if he was still holding it. "Of course I haven't. She's my _daughter_, Ric. Everyone acts like they're walking on eggshells around me half the time because they're afraid the slightest reminder will trigger an explosion; the other half of the time they're acting like I should drop it and move on." Damon wasn't happy, you really couldn't be in this kind of situation, but at least he'd been calm enough to not kill anyone.

Not yet at least.

"Maybe you should drop it," Alaric suggested sadly. "I mean, there's been no word for four months, no leads at all, all you have to go on is a shoe. Don't you think she'd at least have called Jeremy, or at least made an attempt at attacking Tyler if she didn't know about the cure?"

Damon's frustrated expression remained on his face, his voice rising. "What are you insinuating? That she doesn't care? That she turned her emotions off with a switch that doesn't exist?"

"No." The teacher's voice was sober, despite the amount of alcohol he'd consumed. "I'm saying she might be dead."

*LIT*

_Drive By _by Train floated throughout the entire house as Ziela continued moving in. When it got to the chorus, she sang along, ignoring the cell phone that was vibrating on the bed. "I swear to ya, I'll be there for ya, this is not a drive by-y-y-y-y. Just a shy guy looking for a two ply hefty bag to hold my-y-y-y-y-y love." She hummed along until the end of the song before checking her phone.

_Three New Messages from Jeremy Gilbert_

She raised an eyebrow. Why was her sister's quasi-not-boyfriend texting her? Hesitantly, she opened the first message.

_Hey, it's Jer. Tyler gave me this number so I have no idea if it's right. If this isn't Ziela Pierce, I apologize._

Ziela read the next message, sent two ten minutes after the first one.

_So, Z, since I'm currently assuming that's who you are, have you heard from Lilith at all? Or do you know anything? Because your dad is seriously _broken_. I have never seen him like this and it's really worrying both Elena and me._

The last message was sent thirty seconds after that one.

_How awkward would it be if this was the wrong number?_

Ziela let out a laugh and turned the radio down, dialing as she went. She didn't get an answer until the third ring. "Hello?"

"Jeremy, it's Ziela."

She could hear the relief in his voice. "So Tyler did give me the right number?"

The dhampir nodded though he couldn't see. "That he did." There was a quiet roar of conversation in the background and she could hear the bass sound of a song being blasted through the speakers. "Hey, where are you?"

"I'm at Elena's party; hold on a second, I'll step outside." A minute later, the background noise disappeared. "Alright, I can talk now; but Caroline will kill me if I miss cake, so it'll have to be quick."

Ziela stepped out of the bedroom and headed for the kitchen. "Okay, I'll just tell you all you need to know. You cann_ot_ let my dad go after her – it'll throw off all of my mom's plans – and she's okay; she's alive, if you can really call it that. She's not in danger. That's all I can tell you."

She could practically hear the frown on his face when Jeremy spoke again. "What? What do you mean "if you can really call it that"? Ziela, where is she?"

His voice was more concerned than demanding and Ziela sighed. "I can't tell you; you'd go after her and it would ruin everything." There was a minute and a half of quiet; just Ziela's thoughts and a barely audible radio playing the Barenaked Ladies' _Have You Seen My Love_. "Jeremy?"

"I understand that you shouldn't tell me, and I probably wouldn't tell me either, but I really care about her, and a lot of other people here in Mystic Falls do too. You haven't seen what it's doing to Damon – and believe me when I say that you don't want to. If you change your mind about telling me, call me. Okay?"

He hung up before she had a chance to properly respond, and Ziela has stuck listening to the quiet music, the lyrics oddly fitting. _Have you seen my love? Have you seen my love? Have you seen my little girl, oh, have you seen my love?_

*LIT*

The silence in the building was eerie, only broken my Damon Salvatore's quiet footsteps. He couldn't hear anything and the lights were mostly out, leading him to believe that Andie had found some other way to get to the party. Caroline would be pissed if he missed cake because of a simple miscommunication.

Then his phone rang. Expecting it to be Andie about the ride arrangement, he answered in his usual flirty voice. "Hello, you're reached the man of your dreams; how can I help you?"

"Damon? Where are you?" Elena was annoyed – or angry, one of the two – and Damon didn't want to get into that right then.

Holding back the urge to snap at the doppelganger, he settled for an obvious lie. "I'm by the punch bowl."

Unfortunately, that only made her more upset. "Damon, don't lie to me anymore." After a pause, she spoke again. "I know about the closet."

The words made him freeze; Damon Salvatore was almost struck speechless. He spat out another obvious lie – "I gotta- gotta go break up beer pong" – and hung up. He'd just about given up on finding Andie and was about to go home when something changed his mind.

"Damon?"

The syllables echoed through the air, making her hard to locate. It was when Damon had turned in a full three sixty that he caught sight of anyone. Who he saw was very unexpected. "Stefan."

"Hello brother." Stefan's green eyes held Damon's own blue ones with confidence, his voice calm. "Andie, why don't you say hello?"

The girl's gasping breath could be heard from above and Damon's head snapped up. "I can't move." Andie was sobbing. "He told me not to move."

Stefan smiled coldly. "Klaus sends his greeting along with a message: back off. You're only getting in his way, Damon, and that will only get you killed." Damon growled and opened his mouth to speak, cut off by his brother continuing. "How is everyone, by the way? Though you're not really the one I should be asking. I mean, Ziela's in Colorado, I'm sure you didn't know that; Elena is at her party, probably sulking because you didn't tell her about the closet, whatever that means; I know I can't ask you about Lilith."

The elder Salvatore frowned. "What do you know? Where is she Stefan?" He was on the verge of exploding if he didn't get the information.

His younger brother's cold laugh echoed through the large room. "Of course I know where she is; _I'm_ the one who killed her." Damon's hearing only received snippets after that unless he concentrated. Stefan's words were something he needed to hear. "She knew too much, brother; we couldn't have her running to daddy dearest and spilling all our secrets. So I killed her."

The only sounds for a moment were Andie's strangled breaths and Damon's muttering to himself – "no, no, no, no, no…"

Stefan took a step forward. "Andie?"

Damon's eyes widened. "Stefan, don't." His words were pleading, a point far past begging. "Don't do this." The words did nothing, only fuelling Stefan's resolve from reality. For the first time in over a hundred and fifty years, Damon Salvatore was ready to drop to his knees and beg, throwing his pride and dignity out the window. "_Please_ Stefan. _Don't do this._" Stefan's eyes never left his brother's, but his words were directed toward the girl up on the catwalk.

"You can move now."

*LIT*

Southern Comfort's patrons ate, drank, and were merry – oblivious to the conversation between the hybrid and the vampire by the dart board. Klaus was frowning. "Your uncle shouldn't be back for a few hours, and I'm bored."

The young vampire rolled her eyes. "Then do something." She stood and twisted a dart in her hand. "We could play a round." Her ebony waves tumbled from their perch on her shoulders as she bounced forward.

He should his head. "Darts is your thing, love, I prefer more _artistic_ activities." The hybrid put his feet up on the table in front of him. "From what I've seen of you, you aren't very artistic."

Lilith frowned and threw a dart at the board. "I've played bass guitar for twelve years, I can play the piano by ear, and I had a role in the first stage production of _Arsenic and Old Lace_. Still think I'm not artistic?"

Klaus blinked. "I apologize for my inaccurate assumption; you simply don't _appear_ artistic." A moment later, his frown returned. "I'm still bored."

She shrugged. "There's not really much to do." After thirty seconds of silence, she grinned. "Wanna' play truth or dare?"

The hybrid blinked; for the second time in five minutes, this young vampire had taken him by surprise. "Not really."

Lilith's face fell as she nodded. "Yeah, that's probably smart." Another dart flew toward the board and Klaus sighed.

"So, Little Miss Darkside, truth or dare?"

*LIT*

Ziela had tried to call Jeremy back three times. He hadn't answered. _He's probably drunk, _she thought absently. _He said he was at a party. Or he just can't hear his phone over the music._ The thoughts didn't help; she knew he was ignoring her.

Granted, she hadn't changed her mind about telling him anything, but he did say she could call. For once, she just wanted to talk to her sister's boyfriend without trying to steal him for herself. She was about to dial the number again when her phone rang.

"Jeremy?" she asked, he voice hopeful.

It wasn't Jeremy. "Ziela, why would your sister's boyfriend be calling you?" Her mother paused. "You didn't tell him anything, did you?"

She took a deep breath before replying. "I told him she was okay, and then he got mad at me for not telling him more."

There was a minute of silence as Katherine gathered her thoughts. "I'm actually calling because the situation has changed. Stefan's told Damon about Lilith's death, but not her transition. This, of course, changes my plans. When you speak to Jeremy, tell him you lied – that she's dead. Everyone needs to think she's dead so that I can go through with my plan, okay?"

Ziela opened her mouth to reply, but she was cut off by a quiet beep from her phone – call waiting. She sighed. "Yeah, okay. I've got someone on the other line; it's probably Jeremy. I'll feed him the story and call you back." Her mother wasted no time with a reply.

"Don't bother calling me; I'll be enacting my plan."

Then she hung up.

The dhampir answered her other line, trying not to sound nervous. "Hello?"

"I'm assuming there's a reason you called three times." Jeremy sounded tense, and a little angry. "Part of me is hoping that it's because you've changed your mind, but the rest of me knows that you won't be saying things I want to hear."

She felt like all she'd done in the past five minutes was sigh and try to explain herself, and here she was doing just that even more. "Jeremy, I lied."

When he spoke, he sounded confused. "What? What do you mean you lied?"

Ziela sighed again – how many sighs was this now, five? "I didn't tell you the truth. My uncle, Stefan, he- he had to get the cure for the werewolf bite." She paused, waiting for him to comment.

Jeremy stayed silent.

"Well, he had to make a deal with Klaus to get it. Part of the deal was to stay with him for ten years. He has the job of being the Original hybrid douchebag's minion; he does most of the dirty work. Stefan's first, I guess you could call it an assignment, was something he did _not_ want to do. He still regrets doing it-"

The human on the other side of the line interrupted her. "Ziela, what did he do?" It wasn't really a question; it was more of an accusation. It wasn't _what did Klaus make him do? _He asked it as if Stefan had chosen what he'd done.

After a few minutes of tense silence, she whispered into the receiver. "He killed her. Klaus sent him out when she was hunting. It was the night you were shot; it's why she never came back."

"Oh my God." Jeremy's voice was barely audible with the barrier of over a thousand miles on the telephone wire. "So earlier, when you said she was okay?"

"I lied. I've got to go Jer, but I'll- I'll call you tomorrow, alright?" Ziela pressed _end_ before he could reply and wiped the tears from her eyes from how much she'd believed her own act. "One day," she said to herself. "I'm going to get an award; because I am a damn good actress."

*LIT*

The door to Southern Comfort swung open, causing Lilith Salvatore to look up from the piece of paper she had been frowning at. Stefan walked over to the table and sat next to his niece. "What did I miss?"

"Truth or dare," she growled back, twisting the pencil in her hand just as she'd twirled the dart hours before.

Klaus lazily threw a dart at the board before perching on the table. "I've dared the _artistic_ half of Little Miss Darkside to draw the Eiffel Tower without the use of a visual aide." The grin on his face lacked its usual predatory gleam.

A short glare was sent his way before the younger vampire pouted and voiced her complaints. "I can play bass guitar; I can play piano; I can act at an Emmy-worthy level. I can_not_, however, draw to save my life."

The original's grin grew, satisfied with the challenge he'd provided. Stefan rolled his eyes. "I really can't leave you guys alone for more than five minutes, can I?"

"That's not true!" Lilith half-yelled. "We didn't start truth or dare until a few hours after you left." She put the pencil to the paper, beginning to sketch. "It was after Ray passed out. I also made fun of his accent." The vampire smiled and turned her attention back to her sketch.

Klaus frowned and muttered sarcastically. "Isn't she kind?"

The Ripper laughed. "And who's the one who shaped her into the cold, heartless being who can't draw that she is today?"

"My mother," she spoke without looking up from her paper, now half-way done with what looked more like the Space Needle in Seattle than the Eiffel Tower.

The bar was nearly empty when she finally looked up from her drawing. "What," Klaus asked her as he eyed the crudely drawn lines warily, "is _that_?"

Lilith shrugged. "You never said it had to be drawn _well_." She put the pencil down and turned to him. "Truth or dare, Mr. Overlord, sir?"

His frown returned almost immediately. "_Mr. Overlord_? Is that your revenge for me calling you _Lili_ and _Rippah's Niece_ all summer?"

She shrugged again. "Maybe it is, maybe it's not."

Stefan, who had remained quiet for most of the conversation, looked between the two of them. "Is this what you two do when I'm not around? Argue and play truth or dare?"

"Hey," Klaus protested. "We tortured Ray, too; it's not all fun and games." He turned to Lilith. "It's your turn, love."

She nodded, resisting the urge to mimic his accent again. "Hence why I already asked, _Mr. Overlord_."

He frowned again, pondering all the questions she could ask him if he chose truth before making a decision. "Dare."

Lilith grinned. "Alright, I dare you to-"

"Wait," Stefan interrupted. "I don't wanna know. I'll be outside."

He headed for the door and his niece spoke again. "Okay, I dare you to kiss Stefan." Klaus stared at her, dumbstruck. "On the cheek," she amended. "That way it's not too weird."

Klaus nodded, thinking it over. "Alright, fine. I'll do it. As soon as he comes back."

The grin remained plastered on her face. "Perfect."

*LIT*

As soon as he stepped out of the car, his thoughts were drowned out by happy chatter and blasting music. It was exactly the opposite of what he was feeling. He walked into the house mechanically, barely hearing the annoyed "you missed cake" from Caroline Forbes as she practically smashed the bottle against his chest.

He only caught it so that he wouldn't have to clean it up later.

Damon Salvatore was numb. Not the kind of numb like right before you get a tooth pulled or when you're about to have surgery, but the kind of numb you feel after something traumatic has happened to you.

Paramedics would call it shock.

He only remembered feeling it once before – the night he'd staked Rose. He'd lashed out, pushed Elena away, and killed a woman who didn't deserve to have her life ended so soon. What was her name again? Jessica something?

Of course, tonight would be the night Elena confronted him about the closet he'd reserved for his Stefan tracking. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she demanded. Did she have to do this now? His day had already gotten worse than he'd imagined. "I could have helped; we could have found him."

Damon shook his head. "It was never just Stefan that I was tracking, Elena."

She continued, not even truly listening to what he was saying. "I could have _helped_; we wouldn't be dealing with what-"

"We'll always be dealing with what Klaus has done, Elena." He stood from his seat on the bed. "The repercussions of what he's had Stefan do will always haunt me. He killed her." He collapsed back on the bed, not looking her in the eye. "He made Stefan kill her." The silence almost seemed louder than their raised voices, closing in and suffocating them. Finally, when breathing became almost impossible, Damon broke the silence. "We can't go back and change everything. Nothing will be the way it was before." Elena opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off. "Can you go, please? I don't feel up to doing anything right now, let alone argue with you."

She nodded silently, turning and closing the bedroom door behind her as she abandoned him to his thoughts in the empty house.

*LIT*

Lilith almost fell out of her chair laughing when Stefan walked in the door and slipped his phone in his pocket, mostly and the image her mind had created. Klaus reluctantly walked forward, sent her a glare, and met the ripper's cheek with his lips. "We are to never speak of this," he growled as he walked away, his face tomato red.

Stefan blinked and walked back out the door. This is what he got for letting them play truth or dare.

*LIT*

Somehow, Damon ended up in his brother's room; the lamp lay broken on the ground, the bed was a mess, the books scattered on the floor. The guitar was raised and he was ready to smash it – or at least was until he remembered why the guitar was in his brother's room in the first place…

"_Lilith!" Stefan yelled as she played a tune from upstairs. "Either stop playing or teach me!" He laughed and Damon looked up from the episode of BONES he'd been watching._

_Her laughter from upstairs floated down as the music stopped. "After the dance I will."_

The hidden promise in the words was never fulfilled because of arguments or life threatening situations, and so the guitar had been stashed in Stefan's room for future use. That was four months ago; now, the owner of the guitar was dead, killed by family. Why did that remind him of something?

For the first time in four months, Damon Salvatore muttered old Shakespearean language - his own personal kind of closure.

"She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word." His voice was barely above a whisper, too weakened from the emotional toll to speak louder. "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day. To the last syllable of recorded time and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing." The quiet words hung in the air for a moment before he translated it for himself. "She would have died later anyway. That news was bound to come someday. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. The days creep slowly along until the end of time. And every day that's already happened has taken fools that much closer to their deaths. Out, out brief candle. Life is nothing more than an illusion. It's like a poor actor who struts and worries for his hour on the stage and then is never heard from again. Life is a story told by an idiot; full of noise and emotional disturbance but devoid of meaning."

That's what his life was now. He was the idiot telling the story; noise overriding his consciousness until he's unable to think straight and everything that can go wrong does. But nothing matters.

The saddest part is the he doesn't even know when he finally broke.

*LIT*

Dried tears streaked down Ziela's cheeks; it didn't feel right to lie to Jeremy, no matter what the reason was. She'd done everything her mother had ever told her to do, no matter who it hurt, and she was done. First thing in the morning, she was going to call Jeremy and tell him the truth, unless for some reason she didn't have access to a phone.

She stuffed a few t-shirts into a bag and hung it on her shoulder, slipping her newly charged phone into her pocket and walking out the door. As she sat in the car and slammed the door, she put her head against the steering wheel. When did everything get so out of hand that she had to go behind her mother's back like this just to do the right thing?

It's always been like this, really; she'd do what her mother said and she'd be her mother's _favorite_. Her sister, on the other hand, had better morals; she would hardly ever do what their mother told her to. She sacrificed feeling good about herself and having her mother care about her so that others wouldn't fall apart because she was just following orders.

Then Ziela remembered something from history class. "The excuse of _just following orders_ didn't work for the Nazis, so why should it work for us?" Sure, she'd just been doing what she'd been ordered to do, but that didn't make it right. If anything, it made it worse; it showed that she was too weak to stand up for herself against her own mother.

Now that was changing.

A memory hit her; it was a time when Katherine still controlled her – could make her to do anything she wanted her to.

"_Mason!" She giggled, putting her plan into action. "If my mom comes home and sees-" his lips on hers cut her off. It had been her mother's idea, actually, another way to get back at the rebellious daughter who never listened._

Ziela had let Lilith believe that it was all her, that she wasn't just covering up for the plan their manipulative mother had constructed. Why did she take the fall? That one event had bridged a gap between the girls; they'd barely spoken to each other since. And that was ten years ago. For ten years, she'd been paying the price of _just following orders_. Why should she? It was never her intention to do that again, especially after Lilith had finally gotten over Elijah.

She'd get back at her mother soon; that was for sure. A mother shouldn't be the reason her two daughters stop speaking to each other. A mother should be the one who brings them together, not the one who tears them apart. Someone as manipulative as Katherine Pierce shouldn't even be considered a mother – only a guardian. Not even that, really; she'd never done anything for them. Anna had done everything while she went out and manipulated other people until her children were old enough to mold into mindless machines.

She'd known this all along; Ziela simply chose to ignore it.

The truth is cruel, but the lies she had been feeding Jeremy were worse than the truth. Is the plan really that important? No. It's not that important. _Nothing_ is that important. She was done hurting people because her mother promised a hug and a kiss before bed. She was done following the orders that had caused her to indirectly steal a life away from another. She was done doing everything her mother told her to.

New, salty tears dripped down her face; she'd lost her sister long ago, it was only recently that the physical sense applied too. Her vision became blurry and she relaxed against the seat, tilting her head back. When the moisture from her eyes finally disappeared, she pulled out of the driveway and drove east.

**A/N**

**Did you like it? Hate it? Think I should go die in a ditch? Well, if you're part of the last group, you're not in luck (sorry). Oh, and I'm a Leo - my element is fire - flames only make me stronger. You know what I haven't done in a while? This:**

**Me: Elijah?**

**Elijah: *is daggered***

**Me: Oh yeah. *undaggers him***

**Elijah: *gasps* You... undaggered me?**

**Me: Yes.**

**Elijah: Why?**

**Me: Disclaimer please?**

**Elijah: But-**

**Me: I undaggered you; you owe me.**

**Elijah: *sighs* Fine. TheDhampir doesn't own any of the Vampire Diaries characters; nothing in this story is hers except for Lilith, Ziela, and half of the storyline.**

**Me: Thank you! I'm going have to dagger you again though.**

**Elijah: Why?**

**Me: I'll need you for later. *redaggers Elijah***

**Awesome. Thank you Elijah. Since the chapters will be so much longer in this fic, updates will be shorter - once, maybe twice a month if I can get into a good writing groove. More reviews will make me write faster though!**

**One more thing: I have a twitter (WritingDhampir), Lilith's twitter has changed (FallenVampiric) and I made a twitter account where I will post information about upcoming chapters of this fic (StoryOfLili). You don't have to follow them, but I wouldn't complain if you did. Thank you so much for reading and leave your thoughts in a review!**

**Peace In!**


	2. The Hunt

**A/N**

**So sorry I didn't post this sooner, I just finished actually writing it yesterday (dang writer's block). I know, Klaus is a little OOC at the end, but I wanted to show that he still has some of his humanity too. Anyway, I've told myself time and time again that I wouldn't add another OC… and then I did. His name is Jared, you'll see him this chapter, and picture Jared Padalecki when you picture him. Thank you to GoldenQueenOfTheCove, my wonderful beta-reader! Go read her TVD/Harry Potter crossover, it's amazing! Now, without further adieu,**

Lost In Translation  
Chapter Two: The Hunt

He could hear the television from the bathroom - every last word about how Andie's death was a great loss and how it will never be the same without her. Those things people say when they want to get the bad over with and move on the more light-hearted conversation. One metallic click later, the screen was black. "Hello, Elena," he said as he walked into his bedroom, turning to face his closet.

The frown on her face was made of stone - cold, angry. It would probably stay there until they got little St. Stefan back. "Why didn't you tell me about Andie?" she demanded.

"Happy birthday, Elena," Damon's voice rang out sarcastically. "Stefan killed Andie; cake?"

After a minute of awkward silence, the doppelgänger spoke. "Stefan called last night."

It was Damon's turn to frown. "And what did the cold-hearted killer have to say?"

"Damon," her voice was a warning. Elena didn't want the brothers fighting; nothing good would come of that. If the relationship between the brothers fell apart -

"Pardon me for being upset, _Elena_. At least when I killed Jeremy he came back."

The statement marked the return of suffocating silence.

*LIT*

Three figures moved through the forest. If you watched for long enough, you'd clearly see the forced relationship. The youngest - at least, the one who appears to be the youngest - was carrying a limp form on his shoulders, hiking right along with the others as if it didn't weigh any more than a jacket.

The oldest - which he was, and not just by appearance - wore an animalistic grin. It was the kind of grin you would see on the face of a Disney villain when they believed they would succeed.

The girl - the only female in their ragtag group, and the youngest - trailed a few steps behind, kicking the ground as she shuffled up the gentle incline.

They don't appear to be related, except for the fact that they bicker like siblings - but then again, appearances can be deceiving. The first is Stefan Salvatore - born in 1847 and turned in 1864 - he is the girl's uncle, though the family resemblance is nearly invisible.

The second is Niklaus - born sometime around a thousand years ago and physically in his early twenties - he turned the woman who turned the woman who turned the woman who both turned Stefan and gave birth to the female travelling companion.

The girl is Lilith Salvatore-Pierce - born half-vampire half-human in 1865 and killed in 2011 by her uncle Stefan - a vampire, but most definitely not by choice. The vampire blood in her system - the plasma coursing through her veins that made her the halfling she had been - was what caused her to wake up in transition instead of staying in a state of permanent unconsciousness.

Klaus turned to the weighed down Salvatore. "Do you need anything? A drink? A little sit down?"

Lilith scoffed. "I said kiss his cheek, not start a relationship. She frowned. "And when I asked a little while ago to take a break, you told me to suck it up."

For a moment, all three of them were silent - and then: "truth or dare, love?"

Her frown hadn't even had the chance to leave her face. "Two things; one: stop calling me _love_ - it's annoying and even more cliché than that accent of yours. Two: I don't even want to know what you'd dare me to do after what I made you do. So truth."

The hybrid shook his head. "I call everyone _love_, love. And Stefan is the exception, seeing as I don't love him." ("Gee, thanks Klaus.")

"So, Stefan is the only exception?" Lilith asked, trying not to laugh as she said the title of one of her favorite songs.

Klaus sighed. "There are a lot of people I don't love, love; he's not the _only_ exception." He paused in his tracks and tilted his head to the sky, thinking of a question that would serve as suitable revenge for the dare he'd been forced into. A grin crossed his face as he continued forward. "How was Elijah?"

She froze. "You mean, like...?"

He nodded. "Yes; that's exactly what I mean."

Stefan did his best to ignore them. ("la la la la la la")

"I wouldn't - he's not exactly -" Lilith stumbled over her words. "Well, to put it simply, I've had better."

Everyone had something to say about that.

Stefan: "la la la la la la..."

Lilith: "Uncle Stefan! I can't hear myself think!"

Klaus: Define _better_. I wanted specifics."

Lilith and Klaus's conversation went on. "_Better_ is Mason Lockwood." She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. "And you only get one question."

"Mason Lockwood is better? My brother must be losing his touch." The hybrid shrugged, ignoring Stefan's continued attempts of blocking out the conversation ("la la la la la la...") and grinning at the new knowledge he'd acquired.

Lilith shook her head as they entered a clearing and Stefan dropped Ray Sutton's limp form in front of their new audience. "Ray!" a young woman yelled, running up and kneeling over the body. She looked up at the trio; her voice rose over everyone else's shocked tones when she met Klaus's eyes. "You're the hybrid."

His grin widened at her words. "You've heard of me; fantastic."

*LIT*

The car was completely silent save for the gentle hum of the engine and the quiet notes cascading from the girl's lips. An old, forgotten tune had resurfaced, forcing itself into the front of her mind and sparking new motivation for her quest.

This was the second time she'd disobeyed her mother - the first time being nearly twenty years ago when she'd refused to lead her own sister's boyfriend on in an attempt at the unusual punishment that supposedly worked. Memories of her day as her mother's "traitor" brought tears to her eyes, the tune still pushing its way through her lips until she couldn't help but mouth the words.

"Hurry up and save me, hurry up and save me..." the chorus played back in her mind over and over again until she wanted to peel off her skin layer by layer to make it stop. Of course, she didn't do what she _wanted_ to do; what she did instead was focus on the thousand miles she had to go until she reached her destination.

*LIT*

Tyler Lockwood and Elena Gilbert sat across from each other at a booth in the center of the Grill. Their eyes locked, both refusing to look away. Elena took a deep breath before speaking. "What all do you know about the werewolves in Tennessee?"

"You're tracking down Stefan." It wasn't a question; it was an accusation. "Isn't that a little dangerous? I mean, according to Jeremy, he's like a cold-blooded killer now."

The doppelgänger frowned. "What do you mean _according to Jeremy_?" He shook his head, tight-lipped. "Tyler! How does Jeremy know? How long has he known?"

He sighed. "I gave him Ziela's number the other day; apparently she called him back last night during your party and broke the news." Tyler groaned and sat back. "This is all my fault."

Elena shook her head. "Why would you say that? _None_ of this is your -"

"Yeah, it is, Elena! If I hadn't - if I hadn't bit Damon, Stefan wouldn't have gone to Klaus in the first place, and then Lilith wouldn't be dead." He stared at his hands, still not quite believing the information he'd received this morning. "And I can't imagine how it would affect Damon if he knew."

It was Elena's turn to look down. "He does know; he saw Stefan last night."

The werewolf waited for his friend to speak again, not quite sure what to say himself. Minutes crawled by, the silence more awkward than anticipated. The more he thought about the situation, the guiltier Tyler Lockwood felt. Everyone else in the building was laughing, chatting, or flirting and their voices seemed to get louder and louder until the words themselves seemed tangible.

They ricocheted into his ears, manipulating themselves until the laughter sounded maniacal, the chatting sounded like a plot to destroy him, and the flirting from the group of girls at the bar transformed into a thousand shouts of protest. A wave of shouts, whispers, and imagined glares crashed over him, the accusations his mind had created splashing into his mouth.

Stringing themselves into ribbons of death sentences and guilty apologies, they lay over the entrance to his airway and made it impossible for oxygen to enter his lungs. More conspiratorial whispers wrapped themselves around his neck, gently tightening against his trachea and forcing any oxygen that was there out. The invisible lynch got tighter, and tighter, and tighter, and tighter...

Then Tyler took a breath. The pressure around his neck melted away and the laughter, chatting, and flirting returned to their less menacing, default states. His guilt lessened when he told the doppelgänger in front of him seven, little words. "I'll do anything I can to help."

*LIT*

Lilith had stomped out of the clearing shortly after Klaus vainly reveled in the fact that he was now known across the nation. How bad did your luck have to be for you to be killed by your uncle, brought back, and then be forced to cooperate with the most cocky psychopath in the history of the planet? And that's not even half of it.

She shook her head, trying to forget about the life she'd had for only a few weeks, and stopped ignoring the ache in her gums. How long had it been since she'd last fed? A few days? A week? Too long.

Hiking boots shifted dry leaves about thirty yards away and she ran her hands through her hair, grateful that she was young enough to play the lost-little-girl card. She walked toward the set of footsteps, remembering the first time she'd stalked her prey like the true predator she'd become...

_The girl was compelled to behave. He couldn't have his newest asset making a mess of everything, could he? If the meal he'd prepared survived – which she most likely wouldn't – she wouldn't remember any details of that night; she'd wake up in her bed with a vague memory that she'd convince herself was a dream. Of course, that's if she survived._

_He removed a fearful tear from the human's cheek with the pad of his thumb, leaning forward to sink his fangs into the soft skin of her neck. The hybrid pulled away, addressing the transitioning vampire behind him. "She's ready for you, love. Come and eat."_

_Quiet footsteps indicated that she had heard him. The sweet, delicate scent of fresh blood wafted toward the former dhampir, flooding her senses. She could practically taste the elixir already, the mere idea of feeling it on her tongue masking all reason. Her drunken thoughts were filled with images of the girl's blood flowing into her mouth, down her throat, providing her with unknown power. She continued walking until she was directly beside the thousand year old hybrid. The blood was so much closer, making it that much harder to resist the hypnotizing aroma. Her hand brushed the girl's hair back from her neck and she leaned forward, locking her lips around the still flowing wound._

The choice to turn wasn't a conscious one, but a split-second decision based on the sweet scents around her. Of course, that split-second decision was what brought on the eternal need for more of the sweet scents condemned her to a never-ending battle with control. It wasn't her uncle's fault, not really; he wasn't the one who forced her to kill the girl and turn. But she blamed him just the same. She knew he just wanted to help, but killing her wasn't the answer. The cure didn't get to its destination in time regardless. Yes, she blamed him, but that wasn't why she was angry with him. She wasn't angry with _him_, per say, but with the world. How was it fair that her sister had always been her mother's favorite, got all of her guys, and still possessed the last remains of humanity when she had been forced to give up and semblance of happiness so soon after she'd gotten it? Did this cruel universe somehow find humor in her endless misfortune?

A rustling from the distance shook her out of her reverie and back into predator mode. She couldn't be bothered with the pleasant folly of the past right then; she had prey to capture. Her silent footsteps carried her toward the now audible heartbeat of her prey, the sound flooding her ears. Its heavy breathing drowned out the chirping birds and the pounding of its heart grew louder. She was close enough now to see it run its hand through its hair as it grabbed the water bottle at its waist. "Excuse me?" Lilith called out, her eyes locking on the pulse point in its neck as it turned around. "Could you help me? I stopped to tie my shoe and my family kept going; I got lost."

The human looked her up and down, from her tangled, crow-black waves, to her scuffed and dirty converse shoes, debating whether to help her, let her find her own way, or take advantage of the "helpless" girl in front of it. It took a step forward, making its decision. "Are you sure you want to find them right this second? I mean, you could stick around; we could have some fun." Lilith's eyes narrowed as it took another step forward. She allowed it to walk up to her, leaning forward toward her face to continue speaking. "Fun a little girl like you knows nothing about." A cold smirk crossed its features and she tilted her head slightly, keeping her eyes on its neck. Its heart was still pounding, the delicious scent flowing toward her, overwhelming in the close proximity. The veins below her eyes began to flood with her own lifeless blood, her eyes darkening from ice blue to almost black.

She stood on the tips of her toes to whisper in its ear. "You don't know anything about me, let alone what kind of fun I've had. I'm not a little girl." With the final syllable, she sank her elongated fangs into his skin…

_The girl tried to fight, not that it really did her much good. The new vampire's hold on her was vice-like; there was no way for her to free herself. Her blood cascaded from the severed artery, coating Lilith's tongue and sliding down her throat. New strength coursed through her being and her grip on the girl tightened. Had she really been denying this power for over a hundred years? All she'd needed was a snapped neck or empty veins and she would have woken up more powerful than ever. Her mother was cruel for denying her as much._

_The girl went limp and the final drops of life transferred from her to the vampire before she was discarded on the ground. Lilith spun and brushed past her uncle in the doorway as she stepped out into the cool night air, leaving them to clean up her mess._

The hiker went limp shortly after the initial bite. Whether it was from shock or blood loss, she didn't know. Its body dropped to the ground as its last breaths escaped into the open air and its life essence travelled to her.

She left the body there, no one would find it; they were too far off any known trail for anyone to notice anything unusual. Besides, why should she care about the body? It was food; a simple way to survive. It was compulsory. It was necessary.

*LIT*

She turned the dial on the radio to change the station as the car crossed into Oklahoma. After breaking nearly every speed limit between Colorado and there, she was making good time for Tennessee, her most recent lead. Pretending to be doing work for her mother wasn't hard; all she had to do was explain that the two of them had to stay as far away from Klaus and his new assets as possible, and one of the many men her mother had played over the past centuries would give her a location.

Her most recent informant was Eric Blanchard. He'd been played by Katherine in the late 1700's and was still smitten. Stupid boy. It was clear she'd never loved him, but he didn't give up hope that she would "come to her senses." Luckily, his idiotic sense of hope had come in handy. She had him keeping tabs on Klaus.

Ziela's foot slammed down on the brake as a car appeared in front of her. It was going well under the speed limit and pulled to the side of the road before turning its hazard lights on. She was about to drive past it until she glanced over to see who was sitting in the driver's seat. Why did he look so familiar? She pulled to the side of the road just in front of him and jumped out of the car, walking over to his door. Her knuckled rapped gently on the window. He jumped and rolled it down. "Do you need any help?" she asked. Why was she doing this? She wasn't the kind of person to help people for no reason; that was Lilith's type of thing.

He looked up at her for a moment before shaking his head. "No, no I'm good. Thanks for the offer, though." His shaggy, brown hair took up a temporary residency in front of his green eyes before he used his hand to brush it out of the way. He then extended his hand as if to shake hers. "I'm Jared, by the way." The returning silence made him retract his hand. "Sorry, I just assumed that, since you'd come to see a stranger stranded on the side of the road, you'd want to know something about him." There was something inhuman about him. It wasn't quite in his nearly compelling charm – he was old, but not "Original" old – but more in the way he held himself. There was a sort of confident aura around him.

She tilted her head. "Oh, I guess that makes sense." Ziela took a small step back from the car. "What are you doing way out here in the middle of nowhere, Jared?" The slight emphasis on his name and her change in posture made him comfortable enough to open the door and step out. He was tall, almost six foot, and the breeze kept his hair out of his face.

"That's not fair," Jared said, taking a small step forward so that his face was inches from hers. "You get to know my name but I don't get to know yours?" The close proximity made his supernatural traits that much more obvious. She could practically smell the vampire blood coursing through his system.

Ziela stayed where she was, not daring to move when she gathered that he was older than her. "Do you really want to know my name? Or are you trying to pick up a roadside snack?" She let the veins beneath her eyes fill with blood and her fangs elongate. "Because if it's the second, you may want to look elsewhere."

He stepped back and leaned against the car. "You're young." Jared stated simply. "Within the last two centuries, I'm assuming." He furrowed his brows after a moment. "There's something distinctly human about you. Your heart beats; you're breathing because you have to – I can hear your lungs filling and deflating."

She crossed her arms. "I'm half, Mr. Mystery Vampire. Half human, half vampire – a dhampir; Look it up." The blood drained from her eyes and her fangs retreated into her gums. "Sorry to ruin your late night snack time."

Jared stood up straight and took a few steps, commencing in the dramatic only-seen-on-TV-and-in-the-movies walk-around. "You never gave me your name, _dhampir_." There was more emphasis on those two syllables that she thought possible. He was in front of her again seconds later. "I mean, after this delay, you won't make it to a hotel soon enough to get a good night's sleep. Besides, I could beat you to your car."

She resisted the urge to spit in his face. "Ziela. Ziela Pierce." Her words spewed like venom. "I'll drive through the night. I'll get there sooner. The delay helped me, in a way." She sidestepped around him, spinning and leaning back on his car door, effectively reversing their positions from earlier. "You never answered my question, though I'm assuming I have the correct answer."

Her comment was met with an eye roll as he turned around. "Yes, I was looking for a late night bite. You got in the way." His eyes raked over her. The setting sun made her hair shine with an eerie blood red glow and the shadows over her face hid most of her features. "You said you were half; how does that work?"

"My mother is Katerina Petrova. My father is Damon Salvatore. I was conceived in 1864 when he was still human." At the mention of her mother's name, Jared went stiff. "What's wrong? Are you number five hundred and sixty three on the list of men and boys she's toyed with over the years?"

"No." The word held power; he might as well have said "never in a million years" by his tone. "I have a much different history with Katerina." His attempt to change the subject was commendable, but Ziela saw right through it. "Where did you say you were going, again?"

She took a step forward. "I didn't." The bloody chocolate colored tangle of braids and straightened out waves she called her hair flew into her face and she brushed it behind her ear with her hand. "What was your relationship with my mother?"

Jared sighed. "I'm sure you understand that Katerina is a doppelgänger." Ziela nodded. "Do you know who she is a doppelgänger of?" This time she shook her head. "She's a doppelgänger of Tatia Petrova; my sister."

*LIT*

"I understand that you're angry with Stefan-"

"No, Elena, you don't understand. Can we just drop it, please?"

Damon Salvatore, Elena Gilbert and Alaric Saltzman were tramping through the Tennessee woods and the same argument from that morning had broken out. "No, we can't." Elena's stubbornness would be the death of all of them. "You can't keep this all to yourself. You're angry with Stefan because he-"

"I'm not _angry_ at Stefan. Okay?" The vampire's words were louder than he intended them to be and he paused so that he could turn and face the doppelgänger behind him. "I'm not angry at Stefan." He continued walking up the gently incline before speaking again, and when he did, his voice was quiet. "I'm not angry."

Unconvinced, the doppelgänger tried again, raising her voice to a yell. "How can you not be angry? He _killed_ her, and then came along with no remorse to tell you about it. Unless you turned everything off with that switch-"

"The switch doesn't exist; it's a soothing bedtime story made up to help newborn vampires." He interrupted her again. "I'm not mad at Stefan. I can't be mad at Stefan, because it wasn't his fault." The leaves beneath his feet crunched as he continued. "It's mine. If I hadn't tried to save Caroline and Tyler, I wouldn't have been bitten, and Stefan wouldn't have had to find a cure."

Elena frowned and ran up to cut him off. "This is _not_ your fault. Tyler blames himself; you blame yourself; and, deep down, Stefan probably blames himself too. None of you are to blame. It's Klaus's fault; he made Stefan do it." She reached down to grab the vampire's hand only to be rejected when he pulled it back.

"You're right; it's Klaus's fault. We should find him and get ourselves killed. What exactly are we doing out here?" his voice was clipped and void of emotion. "It's getting dark and-" he was cut off by a growl from the trees and the flash of yellow eyes in the light of the setting sun. "Run." The one word set all three of them into action; Alaric produced a wolfsbane grenade from his backpack, while Damon grabbed Elena's arm and lead her firmly in the direction of the car. Moments later, they were sprinting.

The doppelgänger let out a quiet "oomph" as she hit the ground, her foot having been caught on a rock. She sensed the animal directly in front of her before Damon spoke. "Don't move." Glancing up, she noticed that his attention was focused on the wolf. "Here doggy, doggy;" the vampire set off in a blur moments before it took off after him.

*LIT*

The hybrid's eyes were locked on the remaining hybrids, waiting impatiently for Stefan to return with his first attempt at creating the immortal species. Of course, Ray Sutton wasn't the only person the ripper was returning with. His _favorite_ asset had turned tail and departed on them before the killing had begun, leaving them to wonder where she was, what she was doing, and who she was with. The downside to a lie bigger than a plot-twist in _LOST_ was that that one person being in the wrong place at the wrong time could unravel the entire thing. If, for some reason, Damon and his Scooby gang had shown up, everything could fall apart. She _couldn't_ find out that her father is alive. That's why Stefan had to return with her soon.

It wasn't because he was worried about her or anything.

A branch snapped and he whipped his head up to find the source of the noise. One of the transitioning hybrids had strayed from the others and was making an escape. The Original was in front of him moments later. "And where do you think you're going?" he growled out before sinking his fangs into his neck.

*LIT*

Ziela stared open mouthed at the vampire in front of her. "No." He nodded in contradiction. "No. It's not possible. There is no way that _Daughtry_ is better than Paramore. Clearly, you've never heard _Monster_."

Jared laughed. "I haven't, but if you think _anyone_ is better than Daughtry, you should be wearing a straightjacket and sleeping in a padded room." A short glare was sent his way as the car crossed the border into Tennessee. "You never told me why you're heading to the middle of nowhere, by the way. Am I privileged enough to receive such top-secret information? Or am I too much of a stranger?"

The playful glare melted off her face immediately, a sad frown replacing it. "My sister. Klaus has her. I'm going to get her back."

"Oh," an uncomfortable silence filled the vehicle after the syllable dispersed, leaving the two in a silent battle. Jared kept his eyes on the road, not daring to lose face in front of the girl he barely knew, and Ziela focused on a point a million miles away, her eyes glassing over as she fought the oncoming tears. "You know, if it makes you feel any better, Klaus isn't one to abduct people unless he gains from it. If that's the case, he won't, you know, get rid of her." The double meaning in his last half-sentence didn't help the level of tension in the enclosed space.

The dhampir's head shook, making a mess of her hair. "That doesn't really help." A fleeting moment of deep thought was spent on the pros and cons of telling him everything. She settled on providing a single important detail. "He made our uncle kill her. She came back in transition because she has vampire blood in her system. It's what made us half." Her settlement with herself was thrown out the window as she continued. "I just want to get her back, you know? I'm so used to having her around and the last four months have been hell. I'm used to getting advice from her in person whenever I want, not having to wait months to ask a single question at a time, not that I've had any contact with her." The returning silence grated on her growing impatience and she shot a teary glare at the vampiric driver. "You have no comment whatsoever? No "wow that sucks" or even an "I'm sorry"? Is the great Jared Petrova too good to offer words of comfort to his however many greats niece?" He remained silent and she spun to face the window, determined to not speak to him first.

She got her wish a few minutes later when he finally spoke. "I'll help you get your sister back."

*LIT*

The first sign of life she saw after leaving the hiker's body behind was her Uncle Stefan with Ray's body slung over his shoulders just as it was that morning. Her wariness around her uncle had never truly disappeared. He'd killed her and shown no remorse whatsoever. His excuse was that he'd turned everything off, but that's just what it was – an excuse. She saw his face whenever Elena was brought up in conversation; he was still hurting.

Sure, Elena had come back after Klaus killed her, but he still had a grudge against the hybrid. Lilith, on the other hand, had a grudge with the man standing in front of her, not Klaus who made him kill her. She was starting to like the Original if she was being honest with herself. Not enough to stop sending him glares every time he called her "love" or "Little Miss Darkside," but enough that she didn't vocalize her displeasure whenever he slipped up and called her "Lili." It was her uncle she had the problem with. It was her uncle she'd been snapping at for four months. It was her uncle she'd been starting arguments with.

He nodded once before speaking. "Klaus wants you to come back with me. To him." The last two words weren't needed – they both knew it – but the sentence itself didn't seem complete without it. She nodded, refusing to make eye contact with her killer, before walking off in the direction of their make-shift camp.

*LIT*

The car ride back to Mystic Falls had been virtually silent, only the quiet music from the radio and the hum of the engine breaking the silence.

That car ride ended two hours ago. Now, Damon Salvatore and Elena Gilbert were standing in her room, attempting to discuss all that had happened in the past four months without it resulting in an argument.

They failed.

"What do you want me to say, Elena? That I want to rip my brother limb from limb until he apologizes?" The vampire's voice rose to a yell. "That I want to make him pay for what he did?"

A frown had been etched on the doppelgänger's face since she'd walked into her room and found him there. "No, of course not; I just want you to admit that you're hurt. Your own brother killed your daughter, Damon; it's not humanly possible to have no emotion whatsoever."

"In case you missed the memo, I'm not human." With that, he walked out of the room and left.

*LIT*

The road ahead was dark, the headlights barely casting enough light for Klaus to see ten feet in front of him. Stefan "the Ripper" Salvatore was sprawled across the back seat, finally asleep – any more of his groaning about his niece calling shotgun and he was going to have a hole where his heart was. The aforementioned young vampire was asleep in the front seat; her head was resting on the Original's shoulder and he was shockingly okay with it. She sat up quickly when the car lurched. "Why do potholes exist?" Lilith mumbled sleepily, relaxing back against the seat. She glanced back as she did so, noting that her uncle was still snoring quietly. "How does he sleep through that?"

Klaus chuckled. "Because blocking out your emotions heightens your senses. Obviously, your Dearest Uncle Rippah hasn't shut them off, or he would have sat up when we went over a pebble." He risked a glance in her direction; her eyes were closed and an amused smile graced her lips. "You should get some sleep," the hybrid suggested. "We won't be to Chicago until late tomorrow night."

"Oh joy, another long day of driving," she groaned, anchoring her elbow on the armrest and turning her head to face him, curiousness evident in her voice. "Do you have reasons for our destinations, or is it all just a random road trip across the country? I mean, what exactly are you gaining by travelling to Chicago?"

He shook his head. "Nothing you'd be interested in. I'm simply curious as to why my hybrids refuse to continue living. I know a witch there who can tell me." Despite the fact that he should be fuming, the Original was being nice, a shock to both the young vampire and himself.

"I hope you find what you're looking for," she mumbled before closing her eyes and drifting quickly into sleep.

It was an hour later when they hit another pothole. Lilith didn't even flinch, but her hair was splayed across her face from the gravity of the dip. Silently, he reached over to brush it away from her eyes. The Original smiled slightly after pulling his hand back and redirected his focus to the road. Lilith didn't even notice one of the only kind acts the hybrid committed; she was lost in a memory in the form of a dream…

_Klaus produced a charm bracelet from his pocket with a single charm on it and passed it to the witch across the table. "The daylight spell," he commanded, glancing over at the vampire by the jukebox. It was a mystery even to him as to why he'd chosen the old bar for this meeting. "Now, would be wonderful. I'm sure she'd like to go out into the sun and hunt today."_

_The witch sent him a glare before reciting the incantation. "It is done. I expect you to control the girl. If she kills anyone in this bar, or even this town-"_

"_I'll be sure to remind her of the fact that you're all living beings." He assured her, taking the bracelet and charm from the table and walking toward the jukebox. Using his hand to get her attention, he addressed the vampire there. "Your daylight bracelet, love," he quickly secured it around her wrist and she reached her hand into the sun. Satisfied with the lack of burning and searing pain, she smiled and walked out the door._

In the present, the Original did his best to keep his thoughts away from that memory and focused on keeping his eyes open. Even if he wanted it to, sleep would not come easy that night.

**A/N**

**I, personally, don't like how I ended it. If you have any opinions whatsoever, please leave a review. To do that, you just click that little button down there. Anywho, I have a few questions for you guys:**

**Do you think Damon and Lilith will ever reunite? If so, when?**

**What do you think of Jared? Like him? Hate him? Think I should explore his back story more?**

**Klaus… what's up with the flash of humanity?**

**If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask! And now, for a wonderful disclaimer from… Stefan.**

**Stefan: No.**

**Me: Yes.**

**Stefan: No.**

**Me: Yes.**

**Stefan: No.**

**Me: I'll sic Tyler on Damon and not let Klaus give him the cure.**

**Stefan: Fine! TheDhampir doesn't own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape or form; it belongs to Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson.**

**Me: Thank you!**

**Stefan: You weren't really going to sic Tyler on Damon… were you?**

**Me: No, I ship Delena too much.**

**Stefan: Oh…**

**Me: You can go now.**

**Stefan: But I-**

**Me: Go.**

**Thanks so much for reading! Chapter three might not be up until my birthday (August 9th) or later, just because the chapters are so long.**

**Peace In!**


	3. The Things I've Done

**A/N**

**Finally updating! I'm so sorry it took so long. I've had so much going on and so much writer's block. This chapter was beta'd by a good friend of mine (GoldenQueenOfTheCove). Enjoy!**

_How am I supposed to feel_  
_About the things I've done?_  
_I don't know if I should stay,_  
_or turn around and run..._  
-Yellowcard, _Breathing_

Ziela frowned when the high-pitched beeping of her cell phone woke her up from the state between consciousness and death known as sleep. Her hand shot out to grab it - to throw it against the wall or to answer it, she hadn't quite decided yet - only to close her fingers around empty air. A small groan of confusion escaped her lips when she heard Jared's voice float through the otherwise silent air.

"She's asleep. Can I give her a message for you?" There were a few moments of silence while he listened to the person on the other side of the line speak. "I'll let her know. Thank you for calling."

There was quiet again and Ziela had just about fallen back to sleep when a small pack which was barely weighted with a clean set of clothes, was tossed onto the bed next to her. She sat up quickly, jolted out of her half conscious state. A louder than necessary, "What the hell?" left her lips before she even had the chance to gather her thoughts.

Jared barely managed to hold back a quiet laugh at her outburst and had trouble opening his mouth to speak without a chuckle escaping. "Someone named Eric Blanchard called. He said something about Chicago...?" He trailed off, his voice going higher as if in question, clearly confused as to why someone would call about a city nearly two thousand miles away from where they were.

The Dhampir's annoyance at being woken up so jarringly melted away instantly at the mention of the new lead and she grabbed the bag, hurrying toward the bathroom to change into clean clothes. "I'll be right back."

Ziela exited the bathroom a few minutes later in a light pink sweater and jeans, her vampire genes making it easy to ignore the late summer heat. "To the windy city we go," she announced, marching confidently toward the hotel room door. Jared shook his head, somewhat amused by her child-like optimism. _How can someone go through so much, and still be so sure that everything would work out?_he wondered silently, the small voice in the back of his head providing an answer: _because she hasn't lost as much as it seems she has,_it explained. _Because her sister is still alive out there, when his sister was killed over a thousand years ago. Because she doesn't have to hide her identity, though her mother's may end up being the death of her._He admired her certainty; it was something he wished he had, but knew he would never acquire due to his running. He'd been hiding for the past millennium from the very person that they were tracking down. Niklaus, the insane, conceited, _all-powerful_ hybrid that was the reason that his sister was dead, and the reason he doubted every comforting thing he was saying to his however-many-greats niece.

Jared shook himself out of his thoughts, handing Ziela her cell phone when he caught up with her. "This could be it," he said with half-certainty. "You could get her back today."

The dhampir's smile grew into a grin, her own voice confident. "We'll find her within forty eight hours, and then we'll be in Mystic Falls, _away_from Klaus and Stefan, not too long after."

"Is that the _royal_ we?" the older vampire questioned with an arched brow. No one besides his sister, and maybe the Original who had turned him, had included him in any sort of _we_, royal or otherwise - Kol didn't exactly count either, seeing as it was only to convince him to stay in England with him for a few years. The "we can be buds!" constantly being pounded into his head didn't get truly annoying until roughly ten minutes after it started. Jared rolled his eyes at the memory and waited for Ziela's reply.

She shrugged and glanced over her shoulder at him as they walked out of the revolving door. "Unless you don't _want_ to come to Mystic Falls with us. I mean, we could go back by ourselves. We're a hundred and forty six; we don't need a babysitter." A short, humorless laugh tumbled from her lips. "No, the one person who cared about us like a babysitter was staked." Ziela shook her head quickly, her dark hair bouncing with the motion, and pulled her phone from her pocket. "Give me a minute; I need to make a call."

*LIT*

Damon slammed the phone down on the table and frowned. Of course, Katherine would choose _now_ to give them a lead on Stefan. "Yes Katherine," he muttered to himself as he grabbed his leather jacket from the arm of the couch and started for the front door. "Because Stefan is _exactly_ who I want to deal with right now."

Less than twenty minutes later, Damon was lying down with his eyes closed, his hands behind his head, and Elena sleeping soundly beside him. He opened one eye and looked over at the clock. Could it really be only six in the morning? It seemed so much later than that. Maybe it was how slow the days had been going by since March.

Elena rolled over and lay her head on his chest, causing him to take in a sharp breath, her own breathing gently making his partially unbuttoned shirt float upward with each exhalation. It wasn't that the position was uncomfortable or unwelcome, just unexpected. Moments later, the brief span of quasi-bliss was interrupted by the human's eyelids fluttering open. She tilted her head up to see a quickly thrown together, but believable, smirk. "Morning."

The doppelganger jumped back quickly, pulling her arms from where they'd drifted to his waist. "Damon!" she exclaimed, looking over at the clock before turning back to glare at him. "Six AM? Do you _really_ have nothing better to do at _six AM_?"

He shrugged nonchalantly, the smirk – masking a hint of real emotion – remaining in its place. "Fine, don't come with me to bring Stefan back." Damon stood slowly as he continued, turning toward her bedroom door. "See ya."

"Wait," Elena almost yelled, jumping out of bed. "You know where Stefan is?"

Damon shrugged again and walked over to her dresser, carelessly looking through the drawers. "Yeah. It came to me in a dream. I was naked; you would've loved it. Ooh..." he trailed off, pulling a lacy pair of read panties from the drawer. "Put those in the yes pile."

Elena marched over and pulled the material from his hands quickly, shoving it into the drawer and slamming it shut with a frown etched into her features. "Damon..." the vampire recognized her tone as a warning and took a step back, his hands raised in mock surrender.

The frown didn't leave her face once as she threw the bare essentials into a bag. "Where?" she asked quietly when she returned from the bathroom with her toothbrush and toothpaste.

"Chicago," he replied with a similar volume.

They slipped back into silence as she finished packing, neither speaking until her bag was full and closed. Damon stepped forward and grabbed the bag from the bed before putting his arm around her shoulders and leading her toward the door. "Let's go."

*LIT*

"Welcome back to Chicago, Stefan."

Klaus's voice echoed through the warehouse as he stepped out of the car, the door closing with a slam behind him. Stefan slipped out of the passenger seat and walked around to the other side as Lilith jumped out of the back seat, grumbling about her uncle getting shotgun again. The Ripper's short glare shut her up quickly to allow the Original to continue. "Rumor has it, the Ripper of Monterrey got lonely."

"I blacked out most of it." He interrupted, shaking his head.

"Well, that's a crying shame," Klaus said with a smirk, glancing over at the pair. "It's the details that make it legend."

It was the youngest vampire's turn to roll her eyes. "Didn't you say something about a witch? We didn't come here for a trip down Uncle Ripper's nonexistent memory lane."

A short laugh escaped the aforementioned "Uncle Ripper's" lips, the hybrid a few feet away rolling his eyes. "Yes, alright. I see patience isn't one of Little Miss Darkside's virtues, but I already know that," he added with a wink, causing Lilith to roll her eyes. "Let us visit my witch, and then we may visit Rippah's memory lane." Stefan shook his head again and looked between them as Klaus continued. "Let us go see Gloria."

*LIT*

"Ziela, calm down and repeat _slowly_."

"They're in Chicago," the dhampir's voice came through the receiver, her excitement barely contained. "Jared and I are on our way right now; we'll be there by midnight."

Jeremy shook his head in confusion as he searched his bedroom floor for a sweatshirt. "Wait, who's Jared?"

"It's a long story; I'll explain it to you when we get back to Mystic Falls. My dad doesn't know anything, does he?"

The human sat down on his bed, his voice low and quiet. "Stefan came on Elena's birthday, he killed Andie. He told Damon about what he did, how he killed her-"

"-Which isn't a lie."

"Right, I'm still confused on how that works."

"I told you I'd explain it-"

"-I'm wait-"

"-It's rude to interrupt, Gilbert."

"You, Pierce, are a hypocrite."

He smirked, though they'd only shared three phone conversations in the past week - the only form of communication between them in the last four months - he and Ziela had become strangely close. It's amazing how times of chaos can bring people closer then they ever imagined they could be.

"Whatever, Jer. You didn't tell anyone what I told you, did you?"

"No. I told Tyler what you said after the first call, but he went straight to Elena the next day, and I know she'd go _right_ to Damon, so I'm the only one who knows the truth."

"Good. I'll call you when we get her. Addio."

The line went dead and Jeremy stood, walking into the bathroom and glancing through the open door to see Elena's unmade and empty bed. "Of course," he muttered. "It's six in the morning, so why _wouldn't_ Elena be out of bed and missing?"

*LIT*

Elena frowned as she followed Damon into the small apartment, a brow arching in confusion at the iron stove and old furniture. "Why are we here?"

"Stefan's old apartment," he stated vaguely, elaborating when he saw the doppelganger's confused look. "As far as I know, he hasn't been here since the nineties, but we're here to look for evidence of him being here more recently." Damon's sure steps carried him to a shelf built into the wall by the kitchen and he gently - for a vampire, anyway - started to peel it away from the plaster.

The human barely managed to get out a "what are you doing?" before the shelf swung away from the wall like a door and sent her into confused silence. She didn't speak again until she was done scanning the contents of the hidden closet. "So Stefan hid his alcohol," Elena said before adding a sarcastic, "what a _monster_.

Damon tilted his head toward the opening. "Look closer," he commanded.

Elena stepped forward warily and stared in shock at the list on the wall. They were names. Some were in written in pen, some in pencil, and others were carved. _Giuseppe Salvatore_. The name at the very top of the list gave her clear evidence as to what ever one on it had become: a victim. She took a quick step back and looked to her vampire companion for confirmation, but he was busy scanning the list himself. Tense silence filled the air as she waited for him to finish his examination.

"She's not on here." He said finally, taking a step back and closing the makeshift door. "He hasn't been here."

The doppelganger took a hesitant step toward him. "Damon..." He walked toward the main apartment door silently and she followed. He was upset. Elena had only seen him like this three times before. Once on the night he killed Jeremy - she still wasn't entirely sure what had gone down between him and Katherine that night. The second time was the morning after Lilith went missing. Time number three was less than a week ago, when Stefan had revealed the truth about what he'd done.

Elena lifted her hand to his shoulder and Damon pulled away. "Stay here, Elena. Klaus thinks you're dead, and if he finds out you're not, you will be. You'll be safe here. I'll be back soon."

*LIT*

Lilith followed Klaus and Stefan into the old bar, a frown plastered on her face from all the times the hybrid had refused to tell her where they were going ("so many questions..."). She was walking down the three steps to the dining area when a voice from across the room made her look up. "Well, look who walked into my bar." The woman had hair so white that, if even one gray hair were to appear, it would stick out like a sore thumb, the contrast to her dark skin shocking.

Klaus should his head. "Two vampires and a hybrid walk into a bar-"

"Stop." Gloria's voice was commanding as she stood. "Just because you're invincible, it doesn't make you funny." The youngest vampire of the bunch let out a laugh as she sat down at a table. "Now, I know you and Mr. Salvatore fairly well, but who's your friend?"

The Original shook his head again and started across the room, his footsteps deafening in the near silence. "You won't need to know anything about her if you can help me figure out why my hybrids keep dying."

Gloria took a few steps forward. "Hybrids? A spell that old, well, I'll need to contact the witch who made it. Now, I'm sure this witch is long dead; Rebekah has what I need to contact her."

Klaus frowned, negative emotions practically suffocating them all just from his expression. "'Bekah is a bit _busy_ at the moment."

"I figured. But I need her. So you can go get her, and I'll help you, or you can figure it out on your own."

The hybrid grumbled in annoyance and stomped toward the door. "Rippah. Little Miss Darkside. Come. Let us get my sister."

*LIT*

Damon leaned against the bar, ignoring the annoyed look on Gloria's face. "Hi," he drawled, sitting down on the bar stool.

"Damon Salvatore," she said, her voice void of emotion. "I see Stefan's still running with the wrong crowd."

The vampire arched a brow and sat up straighter, his own voice dripping with curiosity. "You've seen him?"

She nodded. "With Klaus. Nasty pair."

"Well, where'd they go?"

"They're out running a little errand for me. They should be back soon with their friend if you'd like to wait."

Damon frowned, becoming exponentially more curious. "Friend?"

Gloria nodded again and rested her elbows on the countertop, leaning forward in a similar manner. "Mmm-_hmm_. A girl. Klaus wouldn't let me know her name. He called her "Little Miss Darkside" if that tells you anything."

"Well, how old is she? What does she look like?" He straightened again, eager to learn more.

The witch hummed thoughtfully. "She was young, only a year or two older than Stefan if I had to guess, dark hair - just as dark as yours, but a bit more _blue_ - her eyes..." she trailed off, staring intently at his own icy blue orbs. "Looked _just like that_."

Damon sat in dumbstruck shock for a full minute before jumping up and jogging for the door. "Gloria, you probably have no idea what you just told me, but I _will_ do something to return the favor - even if it takes me a hundred years!" He pushed through the door and hurried back to his car, leaving the witch staring confusedly after him.

*LIT*

"Why are we here?" Lilith grumbled as she followed Klaus and Stefan into the apartment, her eyes automatically flickering to the shelf that she could have _sworn_ was swinging closed. "I mean, the-apartment-here, not Chicago-here, or with-Klaus-here."

The hybrid laughed and shook his head, muttering something about "Rippah's memory lane" before turning to Stefan and resuming their conversation from the car that she'd been tuning out. "Now, Stefan, I couldn't figure out why you wanted that poor man's name, and then I found out about your dirty little secret." He walked over to the shelf and stepped back as he pulled it open. With a tilt of his head, Klaus beckoned Stefan forward. "I believe you have more names to add to your list."

*LIT*

Elena watched Stefan closely, almost certain that he would reveal her location to Klaus and whoever the other voice belonged to. He was watching her just as closely, shock barely restrained to his eyes. "Little Miss Darkside," he said, his eyes not leaving her face. "Have you seen my list?"

Quiet footsteps carried someone toward the swung-open door until a shadow was cast over the amber bottles. "Your list of alcohol, Uncle Rippah?" The doppelganger frowned. The girl's voice was familiar, and she was close enough to call Stefan her uncle. She sounded exactly like-

"No. My victims list." Stefan nodded toward Elena and stopped her train of thought immediately. "I thought you might want to sign your own name." There was some shuffling while Stefan stepped back to let the figure into the small room.

She couldn't help but let out a small gasp when it was Lilith who stood there and the young vampire quickly covered her stoic expression with a mask of shock when the sound reached her ears. "What was that?" Klaus growled, his supernatural hearing having picked up on the near silent exclamation.

"That was me," Lilith said, making her voice sound surprised. "I'm sorry; I thought the list would be longer."

*LIT*

She was beyond thankful when Elena managed to stay quiet while she stepped forward to sign her name on the proverbial dotted line. _This is it,_ Lilith thought, swallowing roughly. By inscribing her name on this wall, she was giving up any freedom she may have had. She was giving over her soul to whatever whack job cause Klaus had going. _Who would've thought my uncle would be my own personal Rumplestilskin?_A dark chuckle escaped her lips as she thought back to a book she'd read at the beginning of the summer, _The Bad Beginning._ Stefan had called it childish, but Klaus made time to read some of it with her - too intrigued by the character with his name to say no. Near the end, the cruel and heartless Count Olaf formulated a plan to marry Violet, Klaus's sister, and steal their fortune. Violet had gotten out of the horrendous situation by signing with her off hand.

So that's what Lilith did.

No one else would understand why she switched the pencil to her left hand to write her name, but it was like a silent promise to herself that she would break out of whatever hold Klaus had over her.

While she was enacting her plan, she didn't notice Stefan taking a small step forward and out of the waiting hybrid's line of sight. Nor did she see him make short eye contact with Elena and mouth a silent "tell him."

The doppelganger nodded quickly as Stefan stepped forward again and put his hand on his niece's shoulder. Her pencil clattered to the floor when she jumped and glared back at him, standing slowly as he stepped back to let her out of the small room. "So," Lilith said to Klaus when she stepped into his line of sight. "What's this about getting your sister?" She didn't wait for her traveling companions to follow her as she walked out the door...

_"You complain too much," Stefan pointed out as they walked out of yet another warehouse, the thirteenth they'd taken refuge in that month - the one they'd been in for only a week before Lilith had begun calling it Warehouse 13._

_"And you think I should just let go of the fact that you drained me of my blood and sent me into transition?" His niece arched a brow and shook her head. "I don't think so, Pete."_

_He rolled his eyes. In addition to calling their newest "home" by the name of a television show she'd discovered, Lilith had assigned them each the name of a character. At least he wasn't Artie. "Why exactly am I Pete?"_

_"Because Pete was an alcoholic - you're a bloodaholic. Pete is always thinking about food - you're always thinking about blood. Pete is childish and immature - you're an idiot." She grinned widely at her analysis and turned to face him. "And Klaus is Artie because he's old and will eventually turn on us."_

_Stefan shook his head. "Who are you? I forget."_

_"Claudia Donovan." She said matter-of-factly. "The badass loner chick who was dragged into something she didn't want to be a part of. I mean, I guess she put herself in that situation, but she didn't really understand what she was getting herself into."_

_Stefan paused for a moment before following her down the road, both of them freezing when the smell of fresh blood wafted toward them. He didn't move again until she was out of sight. "Lilith?" The vampire's__voice echoed in the empty alley and he looked over his shoulder when the warehouse door opened again._

_"Wasn't she just with you?" Klaus asked confusedly as he stepped up behind the Ripper. Stefan nodded and hybrid's eyes widened with what looked a bit like concern when the blood in the air registered with his heightened senses. "If she kills someone, she'll run off. We won't be able to find her again, Stefan." There was less than a moment of hesitation before they both took off in different directions, not bothering to try and hide their supernatural speed._

_The Ripper reached his niece first, freezing when the smell of fresh blood became almost unbearable. Blood was smeared on the sidewalk and the limp form of_something_lay in front of her. Because she was kneeling away from her uncle, he couldn't see her face - but he knew what he'd find there if he could. The fear, the guilt, the self-hatred for taking an innocent life away._

_He remained frozen until Klaus pushed past him and gently pulled the young vampire into a standing position, a quiet "clean it up" being hissed as his niece was led back toward the warehouse. Stepping forward mechanically, Stefan got his first real glimpse of Lilith's victim._

_The boy couldn't have been more than six or seven years old, and his blonde hair was matted down with drying blood. The hollowness of the still-open brown eyes was disturbing; it was as if not only his life was stolen__from him, but every ounce of his soul and spirit had been drained along with it. It was a colder and darker look than any of his own victims had had with his on-and-off Ripper track record of the last century and a half._

_He wasn't used to having to look at__the emptiness; he'd always disregarded his victims when he was done with them, not bothering__to clean up his messes because someone else would clean up for him..._

Stefan was jolted out of his thoughts when Klaus pushed past him in a familiar manner and the hybrid's arms circled almost comfortingly around the vampire in the hallway. _Since when are they so close?_ he asked himself, shaking his head as he followed them wordlessly.

*LIT*

"Damon!" Elena sighed with relief as she hurried forward, pausing when he tosses some clothes to her. "Where have you been? I called you an hour ago!"

"Get dressed; you're all road-trippy and _gross_."

His voice was clipped, not quite annoyed - more like determined. The words were meant to be playful, sarcastic, like the Damon she'd been missing, but they came out almost cold.

"I tell you I'm almost discovered by Klaus and you're worried about what I'm _wearing_?"

Her words sounded almost hollow, shallow, conceited. She almost sounded stuck up, like everything in the world revolved around her and what she wanted; she looked it too, with her nose in the air in annoyance.

"I had an hour to realize what a bad idea it was to leave you alone, process it, and move on." Damon's words were firm and she stepped into the bathroom to change, sending a glare in his direction when he speaks again. "Can you hurry? I have things to do."

*LIT*

She stared at the amber-colored liquid in the glass in front of her, shaking her head stubbornly. "I'm not drinking alcohol around you. We don't know what kind of drunk I am - what if I try to get in your pants?"

"I wouldn't complain, Love," he winked, nudging the glass closer to her. "I'm sure the experience would be wonderful..."

Moments later, the bourbon was spilled onto his lap and the glass was in pieces at his feet. "You're a dick," she grumbled, jumping from the stool and stomping away.

*LIT*

One hour. Stefan had left them alone for _one hour_ and this is what he returned to. How could Lilith and Klaus _already_ be fighting? He'd left them alone for much longer in Tennessee and all they'd managed to do was start a game of Truth or Dare.

That had been a weird night.

_Tonight_was a weird night - at least where his niece and slave driver were concerned. One minute, they were leaning on each other like they were their sole reasons for existing, the next they were engaging in annoyingly playful banter, then in the _next_ they were trying to rip each other's throats out. They couldn't just _pick one_?

Them fighting, he could handle. Them changing moods like a pair of newly transitioned baby vampires, not so much. Hell, he'd take them going at each other like two sexually driven teenagers over what he was being forced to deal with now. He honestly wouldn't be surprised if they were to both disappear while he dealt with his Elena problem.

Stefan shook his head as his niece rejoined Klaus at the bar, frowning when she knocked back the shot that the hybrid was about to claim as his own. He moved toward the door when Gloria provided two full glasses of bourbon; he didn't want to be around in ten minutes when they inevitably tried to kill each other again.

*LIT*

Lilith let out a loud giggle when Klaus leaned over to whisper conspiratorially in her ear, both of them erupting into laughter. The hybrid paused unnoticeably when he saw Damon out of the corner of his eye. "_Love_," he said quietly, leaning in close and purposefully keeping his lips less than an inch from her ear. "Why don't you go back to your Uncle Rippah's old apartment and get us some _high quality_ alcohol?"

The vampire frowned and pulled back, shaking her head. "I like Gloria's alcohol. I don't want to go so far away when we can get plenty of it _here_."

"Stefan's alcohol is _far_ better than Gloria's." Klaus nodded confidently. He couldn't let his favorite asset find out that he'd been lying to her; it would ruin everything he'd been working for the past four months. "Believe me, Love, I've had it myself."

She grumbled in complaint but nodded, jumping off the barstool and walking out the door.

Damon casually claimed the now empty seat and nodded to Gloria to signal for a drink. "So, Klaus, word on the street is that you know where I can find someone I've been looking for. I hear you've been calling her "Little Miss Darkside," but I'm questioning that after hearing you call her _Love_."

The Original let out a hearty laugh and turned to the Civil War veteran to his left. "It was either that or the horrid pet name she detests so much. You can see what her choice was."

With a roll of his eyes, Damon turned to be face to face with his least favorite hybrid. "You have two options; you can either give me my daughter back, or I can kill you."

"You can't kill me, Salvatore; I'm an _Original_."

"I can try."

Both of them were on their feet in less than a second, Damon taken aback by Klaus's almost protective snarl. "You should've taken better care of her then, Damon. She's _mine_ now, and you won't be getting her back any time soon."

The vampire scowled and took a step forward. "_Yours_? I don't think so, Klaus."

A cold laugh tumbled from the hybrid's lips and echoed in the empty bar. "You think she'd rather go back to Mystic Falls? She thinks you're _dead_, Salvatore, because that's what your brother and I have been telling her."

Damon froze, regaining his composure after a moment and spitting out a sarcastic laugh. "You're _lying_."

Klaus grinned darkly and spoke, making his accent more prominent and looking up as if lost in a memory. "I'm sorry, Love, but the cure didn't get to him in time. Your father is dead."

Gritting his teeth, Damon leapt forward, pinned to the ground by his neck moments later. He fought against the Original's steel-like grip desperately, feeling the pressure on his trachea increase.

"Don't bother fighting, Damon; you know I'm stronger than you." The pressure around the vampire's neck disappeared as Klaus stood. "Have a good day, Salvatore. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to collect your daughter and brother before completing my errand."

*LIT*

"We're in Chicago!" Ziela announced proudly when Jeremy answered the phone. "My sister will be safe and back in Mystic Falls before you can say "Evil hybrid"!"

The human's laugh sounded from the other side of the line and Jared couldn't help but roll his eyes at his dhampiric companion's enthusiasm. "Evil hybrid," Jeremy said jokingly. "Alright, where's your sister?"

"It's a figure of speech, Indy." she shook her head, annoyed. "She's still in Chicago. We need to get her away from Klaus long enough to sneak her away."

Jared held out his hand for the phone and Ziela slowly handed it over, watching curiously as the elder vampire put the phone to his ear. "So _you're_ the Jeremy Gilbert I've been hearing so much about."

There was a beat of silence before Jeremy replied. "Yeah, and you are...?"

"Jared Petrova. Now, before I go into detail about myself, I have one question for you, Jeremy."

Ziela arched a brow and sent her however many greats uncle a questioning look as Jeremy replied without hesitation. "What would that be, Jared?"

"Why does Ziela call you Indy?"

*LIT*

The buzz had disappeared entirely by the time she got to the apartment, the fun, giggly Lilith leaving with it and the cold, detached Lilith replacing it. Her thoughts drifted as she sorted through the old bottles of whiskey and wine, eventually travelling toward the Forbidden Zone...

_"Claudia Donovan," she'd been saying as they walked. "The badass loner chick who was dragged into something she didn't want to be a part of. I mean, I guess she put herself in that situation, but she didn't really understand what exactly she was getting into." In her opinion, the parallels between herself and the twenty-some year old protagonist were more than obvious. She heard Stefan pause and didn't even think about stopping to wait for him; the conversation had become much too awkward for her liking._

_And then the heady scent of blood hit them._

_After only a moment of shocked paralysis, she took off, not stopping until the young boy was just coming into her line of sight. Only a few tears were sliding down his cheeks by the time she'd arrived, the bloody scrape on his knee standing out brilliantly against his pale skin._

_Her own blood rushed to the veins beneath her eyes, the skin there feeling tighter from the increased pressure. She took a small, involuntary step forward and the boy looked up, too teary-eyed to see her very hungry expression. "I tripped." His voice was quiet, as if he was embarrassed. "Can you take me to my mommy?"_

_Lilith hesitated before continuing forward, her eyes locked on the blood gathering in droplets atop the scratches. With her enhanced eyesight, she could see exactly where the boy's skin had split, every small speck of dirt that was creeping into the maze of shallow cuts. The blood was calling to her, the forbidden fruit of vampirism testing her control. "It might get infected; I should take you home." It was difficult to talk with her fangs trying to push through her gums, the pain only making her want the blood more._This is a test...

_She failed._

_Her sharp fangs were slicing through the vulnerable skin of his neck before she could process another thought. The sweet nectar of his blood was already soothing the starving burning of her throat. It was sweeter than the blood bags Klaus had been helping her force down for the last month, and a thousand times more satisfying._

_When the last drops of his intoxicating life force was drained into her own body, she let the limp form fall to the ground, her muscles seeming to throb with power. The momentary, blood induced high wore off and she froze in horror - she had just_killed _an innocent little boy. In her state of shameful guilt and shock, Lilith barely noticed when Stefan's footsteps sounded behind her and closed her eyes tightly. Klaus's secure arms pulled her upward and she leaned into him, ignoring his quiet hiss to Stefan when they passed by._

_She never thought_Klaus_would be the person she'd lean on in a situation like this. Stefan? Maybe. Jeremy? That's a bit more likely. Klaus? Never. What drove him to want to help her? It's not like she had been nice to him for the past month, the exact opposite, actually. And what made her accept his help? She didn't want him to help her... did she?_

Lilith shook herself out of the memory and grabbed the first bottle she could get her hands on before turning and running out of the apartment.

*LIT*

Elena looked up when Damon got into the driver's seat, her voice tinted with poorly veiled enthusiasm despite the crushing conversation she'd just had with Stefan. "Where is she?"

"Klaus sent her away before I could talk to her. She didn't even see me."

His voice seemed - broken - like he'd gotten his hopes up - and then had them ripped away. The doppelganger hesitated a moment before gently touching his arm. "Damon...?"

The vampire pulled his arm away almost roughly and shook he head, not saying a word as he began to drive.

*LIT*

Jeremy stared at his phone, waiting impatiently for Ziela's next call - the call that would tell him that Lilith was okay and that they were on their way. Too deep in his thoughts, he didn't notice Anna sitting next to him until she spoke. "Hey, Mr. Thinker." She glanced down at the phone lying on the bed in front of him. "Waiting for a call?" He nodded. Jeremy had filled his ghostly ex-girlfriend in on the entire Lilith situation - the girls had been best friends, he couldn't hold back that kind of information. Anna's voice went suddenly quieter, worry threatening to rear its head no matter how hard she tried to hide it. "Has there been any news?"

"Z called earlier; they're in Chicago now." He slowly stood from the bed, his eyes never leaving the phone. "She's supposed to call again when they get her."

The ghost nodded slowly before laying back, her head not making the slightest indent in the pillow. "Chicago's a big city; it could take them a few days to find her, even with Zie' and Jared splitting up. And Klaus might want to move on before they can get to her."

The both went quiet after that, too afraid that speaking anymore would make their situation worse - as if Klaus would somehow hear them and leave Chicago before Lilith could be found, as if something would happen to Ziela and Jared to stop them from reaching her, as if Lilith would make up her mind to not come back and stay on the dark side with her uncle and Klaus.

*LIT*

Klaus frowned when Lilith stomped into the warehouse and threw the bottle at his feet, shards of glass and splatters of red wine flying high enough to deposit drops almost as dark as blood on their clothes. "What?" he asked her, genuinely confused.

"You _left_ me! I go back to Gloria's to find you gone and with no hint as to where you went?" She spun, starting for the door. "I'm leaving. I don't care how much you want me to stay, or how much you _demand_ I stay, or how much you throw in my face that I have nowhere else to go." She turned again as he walked up behind her, shouting in his face. "I hate you! You ruined my life, and now I'm walking out of yours!"

Angry tears were escaping and sliding down her cheeks before she could stop them and he automatically lifted a hand to wipe them away...

_His hand gently caressed her cheek as__his__thumb collected the falling tears and pushed them away. "Everything's alright, Love.__Stefan will take care of the boy."_

_She shook her head as she closed her eyes and__leaned into him, clinging to his arms for support. "I_killed_him. He's not gonna be okay!" Her body shook with sobs as he held her, stroking her hair in a failing attempt to be soothing. "He's dead."_

_He didn't know when it happened but, at some point, the subject had changed. She wasn't talking about the little boy anymore. Klaus gently pushed the young vampire away and held her at arms' length, looking into her eyes as he spoke. "Calm down, Love. He's alright. Everyone has to die some time." Compelling her was wrong, and he knew that, but he wasn't just going to stand by and watch her suffer. "You're alright now... You're with me, Love..."_

_Lilith nodded and slowly walked away, disappearing into the dark shadows in the back of the warehouse._

Klaus pulled his hand away quickly when she stiffened at his light touch. "Don't go?" His voice was quiet, and he wasn't telling her to stay or ordering her around; he was asking her. It had to be her choice to stay.

She hesitated, and he could see that she wanted to leave. What was that flicker in her eyes? Was it... doubt? Could she possibly choose to stay? "Klaus... I..." Now he understood. That hadn't been doubt in her eyes. That had been confusion and surprise at him _asking_ instead of demanding.

He couldn't have that.

"Perfect; you're staying." He tried to hide how much her wanting to leave was affecting him as he took her hand, attempting to be forceful, and pulled her deeper into the warehouse. "Love, have you ever met my sister?"

**A/N**

**Enjoy? Any questions? Any comments? Now, for my favorite disclaimer I've ever written:**

**Me: *does some freaking magical magic* Hi!**

**Giuseppe: Who are you?**

**Me: I'm a friend of Damon's.**

**Giuseppe: What about St-**

**Me: I don't like Stefan. Now, I need you to turn to that camera over there and say that I don't own your sons or their acquaintances in any way, shape, or form.**

**Giuseppe: But, I-**

**Me: I'll pay you.**

**Giuseppe: In what?**

**Me: Gum.**

**Giuseppe: …**

**Me: …**

**Giuseppe: Fine. TheDhampir doesn't own my sons in any way, shape, or form. Can I have gum now?**

**Me: You didn't look at the camera. And you said it wrong.**

**Giuseppe: I know how to use a gun.**

**Me: *gives him all the gum ever***

**Damon: Aw. No one ever pays me in gum.**

**Peace In!**


	4. For This

**A/N**

**So sorry this took forever to get written and posted. I had so much writer's block. Anyway, I won't keep you from the chapter any longer. Enjoy!**

_I sold my soul for this?_  
_I washed my hands in that for this?_  
_I miss my mom and dad for this?_  
-Fun., _Some Nights_

"I'm not going to break, Elena; I'm fine."

The doppelganger shook her head as he walked past her toward the kitchen. He might as well have told her that the sky was green or that bourbon glowed in the dark, because Damon Salvatore was _not_ fine. "Damon-"

"Elena." there was a short moment of silence as the vampire stepped up to the sink to wash his hands and dry them with a fresh towel from the drawer while speaking. "I am _not_ going to break. I'm just going to make some chili and pretend that I didn't just spend the summer searching for someone who didn't know I was alive to look for her in the first place." Setting the towel down on the counter and opening the nearest drawer to look inside, he didn't bother lifting his head. "Where's your can opener?"

*LIT*

She was bored, and she made sure everyone else knew it. "_Stefan_." Lilith whined to her uncle. "I'm hungry and Klaus is making us wait until Rebekah is done."

The Ripper sighed and rolled his eyes, preparing to tell her to relax and shut up for five minutes when Klaus interrupted him. "Just be glad it wasn't Elijah I needed to remove the dagger from, Love. You know as well as I do that he takes much longer than the average woman to get ready."

"Elijah is a _type_ of woman."

Rebekah laughed as she stepped out from behind the curtain of the dressing room, shaking her head in amusement. "I _like_ you. I can see why Nik wants to keep you around. Now," she spun to look in a nearby mirror, frowning at her appearance. "Where's the rest of this dress?"

The singular hybrid rolled his eyes as Lilith grinned smugly, no one making a sound until Stefan spoke up almost warily. "I like it."

There was another long moment of silence until Rebekah groaned and pushed back the red curtain with annoyance. "I can tell when you're lying, Stefan. I'm going to find something more suitable to wear that someone actually likes."

"I like that dress. Just not on you."

The Original spun to face the young vampire who was comfortably lounging on the couch, fuming furiously. "_Excuse me_? I wasn't aware that someone so much younger than myself knows so much more about fashion."

"I never claimed to know more than you, though you have missed quite a bit in the last ninety years, being stuck in a coffin, and all." Lilith crossed her arms and shook her head, the look in her eyes one of determination and focus. "I just meant that the dress doesn't work on you. With your skin tone, you're much better off with something blue or green. Black contrasts too much; it washes you out."

Stefan and Klaus sat gaping at the two girls, neither daring to move in case they inadvertently began World War III. Either Lilith had a death wish, or she was very good at acting like she did. Even Klaus himself had never dared to voice his opposing opinions when Rebekah was around; she was far too terrifying when she was angry.

Yet the youngest vampire in their midst merely sat calmly before the fuming Original, not showing the slightest hint of fear.

*LIT*

Frowning at the sidewalk, Stefan trudged along behind Klaus, Rebekah and Lilith, the blood of his latest victim still on his tongue. It tasted amazing, and his throat burned with his desire to rip into the necks of the people around him. How much his hunger drove him never ceased to surprise him. Every drop of blood that flowed in the bodies around him, or left even an ounce of its heady scent in the air, or lingered on his teeth and tongue drove his urge to feed - his urge to rip into the nearest warm neck and drain every drop of sweet life from his victim.

He forced himself to stop walking and take a deep breath, clearing his head. What was happening to him? This wasn't him. The real him was still inside of himself, somewhere, feeding on adorable forest animals and spending his nights with Elena. He wanted things back to the way they were before he'd given his servitude to Klaus for the werewolf bite cure, to the way they were before Tyler bit Damon in the first place, to the way they were before he'd gone back to Mystic Falls, to the way they were before he'd turned. Stefan wanted _life_ back, to not be driven by so much need and hunger and desire. He could've lived a good long _human_ life if it weren't for Katherine. He would've taken over his father's estate, been on the Founders' Council, been married to Rosalyn Cartwright and inherited the bank from her father. His life would have been _perfect_.

The only problem was Damon.

Damon wouldn't have had the same opportunities as Stefan would have. Their father wouldn't have let him control any part of the estate, returning to war was never an option even before he met Katherine, and sending him off to the university again wouldn't have kept him busy forever.

Even as a vampire, Damon's life had been less than pleasant; Katherine's endless lies were just the tip of the iceberg. Stefan himself had only added to the hell with his own lies and half-truths, plus all the killing he'd done lately - Lilith, Andie, the entire eastern seaboard. The last thing his brother needed to be worrying about was that his brother killed his daughter, the fact that said brother was still on a cross-country killing spree and that, despite everything, Damon was still trying to pull him back from the edge to try and hold onto _something_ normal other than Elena's apparent need to constantly put her life in danger.

It was tragic.

Damon didn't deserve everything he'd been put through the past few months, let alone the things he'd endured over the century and a half of vampirism. He'd seen the darkest sides of himself - and the world - and still come out with most of his sanity still intact. Stefan himself had found such a feat nearly impossible with his blood lust; just getting through one day without ripping into someone was difficult, and it was absolutely impossible with Klaus watching and controlling his every move.

How _had_ Damon managed to stay himself through all those decades when even Stefan went years treating him like he was nothing? The only people who'd never insulted him or looked down on him were their mother, Lilith, and Charlotte, and she had been _sired_ to Damon. In some strange, twisted way, vampirism had saved him; it had freed him from the cold life of living with their father and had shown him that not everything he did was grounds for some sort of punishment - at least, until Stefan met Lexi and she'd taken it upon herself to fill the condescending role.

After thinking about it, Stefan knew that all the terrible things that had happened to his brother after they turned were his fault; Damon wouldn't have turned in the first place if he hadn't forced him to, let alone given into his urges for human blood on a near daily basis. If Stefan hadn't forced him to turn, he wouldn't have killed those countless, nameless, faceless people. He wouldn't have had to suffer through Gallagher's circus, Lexi's harsh scoldings, Katherine's betrayal and rejection, everyone else's disappointment, the loss of his daughter, pulling his brother back from the edge every few decades and so on.

Death would have been a welcome mercy.

*LIT*

_Kat spotting. Abort?_  
_~Jared_

Ziela frowned down at her phone, tapping the screen when it went dim so she could read the text for the twenty seventh time. The words made her slump in her seat on the bench. Whatever her mother's plan was, it was ruining her own plan to save her sister. All Jared was supposed to do was get in and see how much influence Klaus had over Lilith so they could figure a way to get her out of there, but if he got caught, by her mother of all people, the entire mission would be for not.

She didn't text back right away, instead using her energy to dial the now familiar Virginia phone number and holding the phone impatiently to her ear. When Jeremy answered after only two shrill rings, the dhampir let out a short sigh of relief. "Jer, my mother's here." Ziela took a breath and continued before he could respond, getting to her feet to pace down the sidewalk. "We can't get to Lili without the risk of her seeing us and, since I'm supposed to be in Colorado, it would be Jared going in to face Klaus on his own."

"Damn it..." Suddenly sounding more awake, Jeremy sighed. "You need to get her back here as soon as possible. Damon knows she's alive now; Katherine contacted him or something."

Ziela froze in her steps, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. "Wouldn't she have gone back to Mystic Falls with him? Why is she still here if she could be home?" The thought seemed crazy; no one in their right mind would _choose_ to stay with Klaus, even if their other option was to live in hell with Satan himself - though, in actuality, the two weren't all that different. "Unless," she paused, sitting down on the nearest bench. "She still thinks he's dead. I've gotta go; I'll call you if we get anymore news." Before the human on the other side of the line could react, she ended the call and sent a quick text to Jared, pulling her jacket tighter around her as she stood to walk down the busy street, easily blending into the mass of clueless people.

_Change of plans. Find her. Make sure she knows the cure exists. Tell her Damon sent you._  
_~Z_

*LIT*

Grabbing the glass of bourbon from Klaus's hand as she walked past, Lilith knocked it back and jumped up to perch on the barstool next to him, humming a quiet tune and frowning when Gloria glared over at her. "No humming; I need to concentrate. You can help yourself to the bar if it'll keep you quiet."

"Just find the necklace," the hybrid growled, obviously annoyed by the loss of his alcohol. "Then we can leave and be out of your hair for a while."

Rebekah rolled her eyes at his impatience, all four of them looking up when the door opened and Stefan walked in, looking around the building with slight confusion. "What's going on here?"

Klaus opened his mouth to respond but the young vampire beside him cut him off, jumping from her barstool and glancing back at him playfully. "_Nik_ is complaining about his current lack of hybrid friends."

"Does Nik have _any_ friends?" The other Original asked, turning her gaze to Lilith. "I thought we were all here against our will."

The hybrid rolled his eyes with an annoyed shake of his head, his lips pulling downward into a frown. "Rebekah, how many times must I tell you to be nice before you'll _listen_?"

His sister growled quietly and narrowed her eyes, stamping her foot and closing her hands into fists. "Stop making me out to be a brat; I am _not_ a brat."

"A thousand years of life experience says otherwise," Klaus counted with a small smirk.

Lilith rolled her eyes at the immaturity of the Original siblings, absently twisting her charm bracelet around her wrist. "Well, you're no picnic either." Her gaze flickered to her uncle when he took a seat, his voice laced with light-hearted humor. "I've only spent one summer with you and I already want to blow my head off."

The younger vampire rolled her eyes again and started for the door, mumbling under her breath when she heard Rebekah's victorious laugh. "Idiots."

*LIT*

Elena couldn't help but notice that Damon was a bit detached as he spun the can opener around the can of beans. Twice. Thrice. Four times. "Damon?" She kept her voice low, not wanting to startle him as she took a step forward.

He was startled anyway.

When he jumped, the can opener clattered to the counter top and skidded across the tile, nearly falling to the floor. They were both back to work within seconds when Alaric's footfalls sounded in the hallway, effectively hiding the brief moment of awkwardness by the time he walked into the kitchen. "Damon." The name was meant as a greeting, but the history teacher's tone was accusatory. "What are you doing here?"

"She knows."

There was a split second of silence while Elena made her decision. She could say exactly what she'd rehearsed, or she could tell Ric what was really going on despite what Damon wanted. She did neither. Instead, she voiced a slight variation of what the vampire had told her that morning. "He thinks I'm going to break. I am _not_ going to break. I'm just going to make some chili and pretend I didn't just spend the summer looking for someone who didn't want to be found."

Damon paused when he heard the somewhat familiar words before wordlessly turning his attention to the tomato on the cutting board and setting to work. Pretending it's Klaus's head. Stefan's head. For lying. To him. To _her_. Call it protective parenting; call it sibling rivalry; call it him being Damon Salvatore, but they would pay for the misery they'd inflicted.

He didn't look up until he put the knife down, frowning in confusion at the almost concerned look on Elena's face. "What?"

The look on the doppelganger's face softened as she took a small step toward him. "Damon? Are you alright? You seem tense." Her gaze flickered to the chopped up tomato and his followed. His grimace was barely concealed when he caught a glimpse of the crushed, red fruit. Maybe he should have been paying more attention to the cutting and less to how pissed he was at Stefan and Klaus.

"Sorry," Damon mumbled as he moved toward the door almost hesitantly and shook his head, his voice almost a stutter with anxiousness. "I've gotta go. I'll see you at the potluck, okay?" With that, he shut the door and the kitchen was submerged into sudden, deafening silence.

Neither Elena nor Alaric moved until a few minutes later, barely daring to breathe out of fear of being the one to break the awkward silence. When the doppelganger finally did speak, her voice was wary and quiet, as if she were waiting for Damon to return and interrupt her. "He's been acting different since Chicago."

"He hasn't said anything to you about it, has he? I tried talking to him last night, bet even drunk he wouldn't spill anything." Alaric said with a frown, stepping forward to occupy the departed vampire's previous spot by the cutting board.

With a sigh and a shake of her head, Elena passed him a fresh tomato before turning to pour the next can of beans into the pot. "He doesn't want me to tell you. I wouldn't even know if I hadn't been there."

They fell quiet again, only the sounds of the knife hitting the cutting board with each chop and the quiet simmering of the chili could be heard in the near silence.

*LIT*

Jared looked up when the door to the bar across the street opened, waiting until he knew for sure that Lilith wasn't on to him before following her at a safe distance down the street. When she reached the corner, the vampire stepped to the side and out of sight, reappearing directly behind him. "Hello, stalker." Her voice held a strange combination of menace and idle curiosity. "I haven't seen you before, but you seem to know exactly who you're following." The words were almost lost in the noise around them and she started walking forward again, beckoning for him to follow her into a nearly deserted alley. "Or you don't. If you _really_ knew me, if you knew what I was capable of, you wouldn't have followed me somewhere so secluded."

"I'm older than you, Lilith, by almost nine hundred years, and therefore I am a _lot_ stronger."

There was a short pause before she spun to face him, and she could see the defensive walls go up behind her eyes. Lilith's entire mood had changed; even her stance had shifted to make it easier to jump into action. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides and her weight was evenly distributed so that neither foot was easier to strike at and send her off balance. "Who are you? How do you know my name?"

He took a small step forward, holding his hands up to show his however-many-greats niece that he wasn't dangerous. "My name is Jared. I was sent to find you." Although his voice was calm, she still took a slightly frightened step back, shaking her head. "Look, I was just sent to bring you home. I was sent by Damon Salvatore to-"

"No you weren't!" Lilith shouted as she stumbled back a few more steps, nearly falling over as she shook her head rapidly. "He couldn't have sent you!" She pulled her arm back, trembling with fear and confusion when Jared reached out toward her. "He's dead! He didn't send you!" With a soft sigh, he stepped forward again, gently putting a hand on the young vampire's shoulder.

"Jared. What a surprise." They both jumped at the sound of Katherine's voice and their heads turned in unison, neither meeting the doppelganger's eyes. "Now, which one of you wants to tell me what's happening here?"

There was a long moment of silence before Jared looked up at his sister's double, shaking his head and pulling a compass from his pocket. "I don't have to answer to you, Katerina, not while I'm on a job."

_"A job, sir? What do you do?"_

_Katerina__and Jared had been walking through a small garden, the doppelganger's curiosity elevating with each new fact about her ancestor. "I find people." At her confused frown, he shook his head and did his best to explain. "Like a dog. They smell the air to find food. Or like vampires when we smell blood. I can find a specific person in a matter of days."_

_She looked over at him with fascination, her eyes widened curiously. "How, if you don't mind my asking, can you do that? You can't be able to do it all on your own."_

_"I use magic," he elaborates quietly, gently pulling__Katerina__into a gap between the prickly bushes and producing a bronze compass from his__pocket."This__points me in the direction of the person I'm looking for." Jared returned the contraption to his pocket before the needle could start spinning, shaking his head slowly at his own stupidity. What had he been thinking? If she'd seen the needle turn and point toward her,__Katerina__would immediately be suspicious and ask who had sent him after her._

_"Magic?" She seemed even more intrigued just at the mention of the word, frowning with disappointment when the older vampire put the compass away. "Can't I see it?"_

_"No," he replied almost too quickly, raising a hand as if to fend her off. He couldn't let her know that_she _was his job. "A lady like yourself shouldn't be caught up in such__things as sorcery__."_

_A slight smile flickered across his face when__Katerina__released an amused giggle. "'A lady like myself? I am a vampire; I am no lady." She laughed again and Jared found himself smiling wider, thinking of his sister._

_The last time he'd seen his sister was nearly seven hundred years before, on the day that Esther had requested to take a walk through town with her. He'd waited by the door for hours before Esther returned, alone, long after the sun had disappeared below the horizon, with the tragic story of how__Tatia__had slipped on one of the rocks near the stream and hit her head. At the age of six, Jared didn't understand what was happening; he just wanted his sister back..._

_"Jared? Why won't you let me see the compass?"_

"Give me the compass, Jared." Katherine ordered, putting her hand out for it. "Who's your job this time?" Lilith took the opportunity to make a run for it, dashing at inhuman speed towards Gloria's bar and stopping in her tracks only when her mother grabbed her arm. "The compass, Jared. _Now_."

Reluctantly stepping forward, he set the compass in her hand, not daring to disobey. He may be the doppelganger's elder by over five hundred years, but he didn't doubt that she'd find some way to overpower him in a fight. Staring down at the compass's immobile needle, he didn't see her frustrated frown or the narrowing of her eyes.

The younger vampire looked over curiously when her arm was released. "What's so special about it? It doesn't even work," Lilith commented innocently, taking a step closer to investigate.

"It isn't meant to point north," Jared informed her, swiping the small object from Katherine's hand. "It points me toward my job." Returning the bronze compass to his pocket, he shook his head and turned back to the doppelganger, taking a step back at the look of confused anger on her face. "Okay, so I'm not on a job, not technically."

The look on her face turned to one of fury, clearly outraged at being lied to. "Why are you here, then? You're obviously here for a reason, and it has something to do with my daughter. So, tell me, Jared; _why are you here_?" Lilith looked over at the sound of her mother's rare protective tone, reflexively taking a half-step toward her.

Jared took a step forward, not even trying to appear harmless as he clenched his hands into fists and shook his head. Ignoring Katherine's firm questions, he turned his head to her daughter, speaking quickly and firmly, determined to drill his words into her mind and at least plant the smallest seed of doubt. "Damon's alive. The cure got there in time. You can ask Katerina; she's the one who brought it to him. Klaus and Stefan are _lying_, Lilith; _don't trust them_."

"Stay with Jared." Katherine spoke quietly, gently pushing Lilith forward. "I'll be right back." Before they could react, she disappeared, leaving her daughter and ancestor to stare in blank confusion at the empty spot where she'd been standing just moments before.

*LIT*

Jeremy was pacing around his room when a soft knock on the door alerted him to Elena's presence. "Jer?" he looked up at his sister slowly, raising his eyebrows in a silent response. "I'm heading out with Caroline and Bonnie." He nodded and returned to his pacing when she closed his bedroom door.

Glancing up, he noticed Anna sitting worriedly on the edge of the bed. "Any news?"

"Not yet." With a sigh, Jeremy sat down beside her, shaking his head. "I'm still waiting for Ziela to call."

There was a long pause as the ghost in the room looked down at the ground with a worried nod. They were both more worried than they'd ever admit, both contemplating what may happen if Katherine stopped Jared from getting to Lilith, what might happen if she was trapped in Klaus and Stefan's web of lies forever, what may happen if she never got back to Mystic Falls.

"Do you think they'll find her?" Anna asked suddenly, looking over at her human ex-boyfriend with a worried frown. "You said Katherine was there, and she could ruin everything just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why does she want to be anywhere near them in the first place? Doesn't Klaus still want her dead?"

He cut her off before she could continue, shaking his head. "I'm sure Jared's found her already. I bet they're on their way here right now." The human nodded reassuringly, not knowing who he was trying to convince more - Anna, or himself.

*LIT*

"I think you need to take a beat with Elena."

Damon rolled his eyes at Alaric's words, putting on his sarcastic mask as he turned to face his friend. "Take a beat from _what_ with Elena, Ric?" The mask slowly began to melt away as he shook his head, turning his attention to the dozen pots of chili on the table. "Last time I checked, she's only around to make sure I don't snap and eat the entire town."

The history teacher paused and let his gaze flicker ashamedly to the ground, shaking his head slowly. Here he was, accusing his best friend of being too close to another friend when he'd just found out that his brother had killed his daughter. He didn't speak for a moment, his voice holding a slightly apologetic tone. "So, there's nothing going on between you and Elena?"

"Correct."

At the vampire's short nod, Alaric arched a curious brow, following as they continue down the table. "But you _want_ there to be something between you and Elena." The words weren't questioning, or even accusatory, only curious.

Damon paused before turning slowly to face his friend, frowning and shaking his head. "That's not the same thing." With a deeper frown, he started walking away from the table, turning around to face Alaric as he traveled backward. "There's nothing to take a beat from, Ric." Offering a halfhearted wave, the vampire turned around again and disappeared into the Lockwood mansion.

*LIT*

It was almost half an hour after Lilith left that Klaus finally rose from his seat, leaving the bar without a word to Stefan or Rebekah and turning to track her down. For all he knew, she could've made a run for it, taken the opportunity to get as far away from Chicago - and him - as possible while he was distracted by bickering with his sister. If she managed to make it back to Mystic Falls, all of his lies would be revealed. He couldn't let that happen. He couldn't let her get away from him. She couldn't travel that far alone.

The hybrid froze in his tracks at the thought. Where had _that_ come from? He was annoyed with Rebekah, yes, but had she really driven him so insane that he'd begun _caring_ for his young asset? No. He had fun with her, of course, but he certainly didn't _care_. Caring about someone implied emotion, and emotion was a vampire's greatest weakness. He didn't care how safe or dangerous her travels were; he just knew that she shouldn't _be_ traveling. She was supposed to stay in Chicago, with _him_, where she could be protected from the truth.

Emitting a low growl, Klaus shook his head and continued walking, looking for any sign of the rogue vampire on the busy streets. It wasn't fair. He should be commanding a hybrid army by now, not wasting his time searching for someone who was supposedly loyal to him. If she was really so loyal, then why had she left?

No. He wouldn't let himself miss her.

But she reminded him so much of his brother, it was easy to miss her presence. She and Kol both had such teasingly sarcastic personalities and, since said sibling wasn't around to be a complete pest, it was nice to have someone around who wasn't _quite_ as annoying as his brother. Truth be told, he already missed her. She'd made it a bit easier to put up with his sister, and they'd acted as buffers for each other against her uncle and his near constant judging.

For the past thousand years, he'd been miserable, waiting for someone to come along who wouldn't leave him. He thought his family would at least stand by him, but Kol had left - albeit temporarily - the first chance he got, Finn and Elijah split away from them after only a hundred years, and even Rebekah had almost left because of her "love" for Stefan. Then there was Lilith. It was easy enough to convince her to come with them in the first place, and it looked good for the first month, like she'd never leave, but it was getting harder and harder to keep her around.

Fine.

Klaus shook his head as he turned around, starting back toward Gloria's. If she didn't want to stay, she didn't have to. She could leave and go back to Mystic Falls if that's what she wanted; he wouldn't be the one to hold her back from what she wanted. So what if she found out about his lies? She already hated him.

That was that. One nuisance gone, and only two more to deal with.

*LIT*

Katherine returned to the alleyway just as the sun was beginning to set, nodding once at Jared in silent greeting before turning her attention to her daughter. "Stay close, and don't let yourself get spotted. I'll follow you in a few minutes and we'll start heading back to Mystic Falls." With a short nod, Lilith walked out into a wave of people obediently, heading away from Gloria's bar in case her former companions were still lurking nearby.

"You're reunited with your daughter and the first thing you do is send her back out into the dangers she's only just escaped?" Jared shook his head in confusion, his voice almost accusing. He knew his sister's double was a horrible parent, but this was crazy even for her. No parent was _this bad_.

Ignoring his tone, the doppelganger spoke calmly. "Damon didn't send you." It wasn't a question, and there wasn't even a hint of curiosity in her words. It was a statement. She knew. "Tell her to go back to Colorado, out of danger, and _stay there_. It's a sin to disobey your parents, you know."

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, refocusing his gaze on the vampire. "You would know _all_ about sin, wouldn't you, Katerina? You've led more than a few to a life of it."

Katherine narrowed her eyes, her lips pulling into a mischievous grin as her head shook with amusement. "And you've never been sinful, Jared? I find that hard to believe."

"You made sure of that, Katerina." His own eyes narrowed as he mirrored her grin. "It was nice seeing you again, but you have a daughter you owe an explanation to and I have to make sure your other daughter gets back to Colorado safely."

"Be sure to take care of yourself, too. I'll come for a visit as soon as Lilith gets settled in." She nodded once and turned to go, disappearing in a faint blur.

*LIT*

His back hit the wall hard when Caroline pushed him across the room, his vision blurring and going dark for a moment before his supernatural abilities could heal his injuries. When his vision cleared, Damon was able to focus his gaze on Elena who was standing in the doorway with an angry frown on her face. "Damon!" He stood without a word, brushing past her to move toward the side door. "Damon, stop!" She grabbed his arm daringly, forcing him to turn around. "You can't go around attacking people just because you feel like it anymore, Damon. Not here and not around me."

The vampire pulled out of her grasp easily, not bothering to wipe the blood from his chin. She couldn't change who he was; he wouldn't let her control him like that. "I'm not Stefan," he growled, shaking his head. "_Stop_ trying to turn me into him." He brushed past her again, lifting a hand to wipe the half-dried blood from his skin, a darkened red smear marking the spot.

Elena may not have been intentionally been trying to turn him into Stefan, but it certainly felt like it. _Stefan_ of all people was the worst person to try to turn him into him into, especially after what he'd done. If he became Stefan like she wanted, he'd be ripping into people left and right. Couldn't she see that? By not being his brother, he was _protecting_ Elena, and everyone around her.

"Damon..." He didn't look back as she followed after him, pushing through the door hot on his trail, rolling his eyes when Alaric joined their small group. That's just what he needed, another witness to his rage.

With a shake of his head, he turned quickly, his voice coming out as a low growl. "I will _never_ be Stefan, Elena; even you can't change me."

The history teacher near them watched the tense silence that followed with a confused frown. He knew Elena wouldn't try to turn Damon into his brother, especially after everything that happened with Lilith. "What's going on? I thought we handled everything with Stefan?"

"Lilith isn't dead." Damon's gaze didn't leave Elena as she spoke, his eyes narrowing in accusation. Hadn't they agreed that no one but them would know that? "She doesn't know the cure reached Damon in time." There's a short moment of silence before the doppelganger addresses him instead. "And you're upset, because you went through all this trouble to get Stefan back, and then you found out that your brother doesn't want to come back and your daughter thinks you're dead. It's only natural to be upset."

A sickening crack rang out a moment later and Alaric slumped to the ground, Damon's voice quiet and cold. "Upset is an emotion specific to those who care." Elena stood in shocked silence as the familiar words echoed in her ears.

She knew he was upset; he wouldn't be this reckless if he wasn't, but, being Damon, he had to put on his mask of sarcastic indifference and pretend that nothing was wrong when he was really falling apart. As much as he trusted her, he still wouldn't let her see how or what he was feeling. Why couldn't he just open up for five minutes so someone could help him?

The doppelganger dropped to her knees beside Alaric's limp form, releasing a soft sigh of relief at the sight of the ring on his finger. She scolded herself for not seeing this coming; she should have known that something like this would break him. Shaking her head and looking around for anyone she may need to feed a cover story to, Elena lifted her phone to her ear, hoping Caroline wouldn't be too busy to answer.

*LIT*

Jared was grinning triumphantly when he met up with his dhampir travelling companion at the car, crossing his arms as he leaned against the door. "You'll never guess who helped me." With a roll of her eyes, Ziela shook her head and aimed a nod his way, motioning for him to tell his tale. He opened the door for her first, giving a dramatic wave of his arm and causing his greats-niece to let out a giggle. "I'll tell you on our way to Colorado."

*LIT*

"How long have you known?"

Katherine didn't answer, pretending to not hear her daughter as she stared at the road ahead of her. The beauty of the situation was that she didn't have to answer, because she was a parent, and parents don't owe their children answers or support or _anything else_. What did children do to deserve everything they wanted or needed? The parents are the ones who worked all their lives to give everything to juvenile, immature creatures who didn't deserve any of it.

"You've known this entire time, haven't you? Of course you have, you're the one who brought him the cure in the first place." Lilith frowned from her place in the back seat and shook her head. She'd missed four months of her life because of a single lie and now her mother wouldn't even confirm what she already knew; there was definitely something wrong with that. Shouldn't parents be more comforting and supportive and tell their kids that everything would be okay? She knew her mother wasn't exactly the best parent in the world, but that didn't mean she had any excuse to not even make an effort. "You've always known and you haven't even tried to reach out and tell me? Yet, somehow, you wonder why I don't trust you."

"Your lack of trust has nothing to do with me not contacting you, dear. Your lack of trust is your own choice."

A tense silence filled the confines of the car as Lilith turned her head to stare out the window. The signs on the side of the road whizzed by as she mumbled under her breath, not quite loud enough for her mother to hear. "You have to give it to get it."

*LIT*

The shrill ringing of his cell phone jolted Jeremy into action, his feet barely touching the ground as he dove from the bed to answer the call before it could go to voicemail. "Hello?" he asked the receiver from his position on the floor.

"Uber good news, JerBear!" Ziela crowed from the other side of the line. "Guess who's on her way to Mystic Falls _right now_." Her grin was audible in her voice as she continued. "Too slow, so I'll just tell you. My mom is on her way with Lilith."

"No, you won't get to finally meet me," Jared chimed in. "We're headed back to Colorado as per Petrova request."

Jeremy paused for a moment in surprise before scrambling to his feet and hurrying out into the hallway in search of Elena. "How long?" He reached the bottom of the stairs just as his sister and Alaric walked through the door, ignoring their confused expressions.

The dhampir didn't respond for a moment as she conferred with Jared for times and speed limits and distances. "Should be first thing in the morning. We've got to go, Jer, we're going into Missouri so I don't know how great my cell service is gonna be. Oh, and don't tell anyone. My dad could use a good surprise."

Elena's confused frown only deepened when her brother ended his call, opening her mouth to question him just as he began to explain. "Look, I know I probably should have said something sooner, but I know a lot, maybe more than you and Damon do. In fact, I _know_ I know more than you do."

For a moment, his quasi-family stared at him in blatant shock, the silence only being broken by Alaric's confused curiosity. "What do you know?"

*LIT*

"Oh good; you're awake," Rebekah crooned at the sound of Stefan's groan. His neck ached and he could tell after only a few moments of idle thought that the surface beneath him wasn't the floor of the warehouse in Chicago; it was too cold, and there were ridges - definitely not made of concrete - digging into his back. If he was in the Windy City, shouldn't he hear the whistling of the wind around the metal storage pod?

The ripper groaned again when Klaus pulled him to his feet, the hybrid's arm going around his shoulders. "Stefan, Stefan, Stefan. You've made my sister and me extremely suspicious lately. What, with your questions of Mikael and your aversion to finding the necklace. I thought we were mates, Rippah. My trusting nature is slowly dwindling away into nothing, you know. Lilith ran off to who knows where, and now you won't tell me everything you so clearly know. So, tell me Stefan. What _exactly_ about the necklace has you running the other direction? Do you know what I think? I think you know where it is. We're going to find out if that's true." With a smug grin, he stepped forward and grabbed ahold of the leather strap used to open the door of the storage pod.

It took Stefan a few moments to process the sight before him as he adjusted to the brightness of the sun on the glaringly clean windows of shops and various historical buildings but, when he did finally interpret his surroundings, he was struck speechless from shock.

"Welcome back to Mystic Falls, Stefan."

*LIT*

The slamming of her mother's car door is what jolted Lilith awake. She groaned at the brightness of the sunlight pouring in from the windows and squeezed her eyes shut again almost immediately, shaking her head in annoyance. "You didn't have to be so loud." She didn't see Katherine's slight smirk as she braved a look toward the brightest parts of the light out the window, her frown morphing into one of confusion at the sight of a very familiar house. "Why are we here?"

"I had to pick something up." The doppelganger shrugged as she started the car again, pulling out onto the road and driving much faster than the speed limit allowed. "Now to see someone I _know_ will want to see you."

Lilith crossed her arms, slouching in her seat as she frowned out the window. There had been no reason for them to stop at the Gilbert residence, except for Katherine's poor excuse to _pick something up_. Why had she _really_ been there? It had to have something to do with her next diabolical plan. And where were they going now? Did her mother really expect her to believe Jared's lies? There was no way her father was alive. Stefan wouldn't lie about something like that; Klaus wouldn't lie to her.

She moved away from the window when they arrived at the boarding house, not wanting to look at the surely empty building any longer than she had to, and barely glanced up when her mother stepped out of the car. If the building was empty, why would they be stopping here? The young vampire watched as Katherine knocked on the door, frowning when the view of who opened it was blocked. Damn the soundproof windows; she couldn't hear _anything_. It was almost ten minutes of silent chatter and smirks and seductive flips of her hair before she finally moved and, when she did, Lilith was stuck silent.

Jared wasn't lying. Stefan was, Klaus was, but Jared wasn't. Without having to think twice, she pulled up the lock on the car and leapt out, letting the door close on its own behind her. Before she could be stopped by Katherine, who actually seemed somewhat proud of herself for what she assumed could be counted as a good deed, she ran at inhuman speed to the door, pausing when Damon turned to the doppelganger beside them. "You found her… I would kiss you right now if I didn't hate you more than I hate werewolf bites."

"Yeah, yeah, happy reunion and all that. Now," Katherine grinned almost wickedly, holding up the car keys and waving them in front of his face. "Who's up for a family vacation?"

**A/N**

**So, that last scene didn't end up how I originally intended, but it isn't _horrible_... I actually have a few questions for you guys.**

**I know Klaus is portrayed as this big, bad monster, but he _does_ have a heart (as we saw in 4x12). What did you guys think of his sort of commentary about Lilith leaving?**

**What about Jared? Isn't his compass awesome? hint: not really. But it was fun to write about.**

**Clearly, I don't have very many questions (also, I just got out of school half an hour ago, so I really don't want to think anymore). I have already started writing chapter five, but who knows how long it'll take to post that chapter. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to PM me, or tweet me at StoryOfLili. ANNOUNCEMENT: There is a Kilith couple on twitter! HerOverlord and HisDarksideLili are two of my favorite RP accounts, follow them if you so please. Now, for a disclaimer.**

**Me: *shifty; dagger; etc...***

**Elijah: Really? Again?**

**Me: You catch on fast.**

**Elijah: _Why_?**

**Me: Because I like you. Also: Twitter.**

**Elijah: Twitter?**

**Me: You're so much more fun as an Angry Bird... Anyway, I have a few questions-**

**Elijah: Can't I just say what I need to say and get daggered again? The people here are idiots.**

**Me: Oh, that's _great_ parenting.**

**Elijah: What?**

**Me: You'd know if you had a twitter.**

**Elijah: ...**

**Me: ...**

**Elijah: THE DHAMPIR OWNS NOTHING. *grabs the dagger from me and daggers himself***

**Me: ..._Well_.**

**In case you're wondering, the reference I made to Kittoon ( ExquisiteElenaG and NomadMikaelson on twitter) was intentional.**

**PEACE IN.**


	5. Hurry Home

**A/N**

**Sorry it took me so long to get this out (not my fault!). Also, you see that word over there? "Sorry"? THAT'S MY 100,000****TH**** WORD ON FF! I wanted to post this yesterday, but I never got the chance because I went to bed early than I wanted, and I didn't have it back from my beta. In other news, this is my longest chapter yet (7626 words without authors notes). NOTICE. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE READ THIS: Go to my profile after reading this chapter. Click Big Bang. Read it. Write something. Okay? Okay. Not gonna lie, the lack of Kilith in this chapter hurts. You know what also hurts? How much Kilith is on twitter. Follow HisDarksideLili and HerOverlord! Without further adieu, enjoy the chapter.**

_It doesn't matter what you've done,  
I still love you.  
It doesn't matter where you've been,  
you can still come home…  
_-Jason Michael Caroll, _Hurry Home_

There was a groan of complaint followed by the snapping of about fifty mousetraps when Matt opened the classroom door. "_Seriously_?" Caroline groaned again as she turned to her still human ex-boyfriend.

"What are you guys doing?"

He looked up at the sound of Elena's disappointed sigh. "You forgot, didn't you?" She frowned and started to explain when he shook his head in confusion. "Senior prank night." The doppelganger's frown deepened when his expression announced that he had, in fact, forgotten.

Caroline climbed down off the desk she'd been perching on and marched over to him, shaking her head and scrunching up her nose as if she'd just tasted something sour. "We're making memories," she stated with a firm nod. "Meanwhile, you smell like you just spent three hours in a crowded sauna." Matt opened his mouth to speak and closed it again, shaking his head. "Where do you think you're going?"

Her piercing gaze was directed behind him, freezing Elena in the doorway. "To superglue Alaric's desk shut." the human turned just in time to see her lips spread into a wide grin. "I'm making memories."

Without another word, she turned and made her way down the hallway, her grin widening a little more with each group of pranksters she passed by. As the doppelganger turned a corner, she heard Tyler telling a small crowd of people to go help out in the gym with one of the bigger pranks. Just as she turned her attention back to the hallway she was currently navigating, Elena froze, staring up in surprise at the person in front of her as a wave of panic made her heart pound and her throat tighten. "Klaus..."

"There's my girl."

*LIT*

The cold window against her forehead made it impossible to think. Good, she didn't want to think. If she thought, she'd end up thinking about the last four months, and everything that had happened, and how foolish she'd been to believe all of Klaus's lies. Not thinking, however, meant that she couldn't block out her parents' near constant bickering. "Are we there yet?" Lilith groaned in annoyance when they finally shut up. "We've been driving for _hours_, and I can't take any more of your arguing. To be completely honest, I can see why you aren't in a relationship; you'd kill each other within a week."

Damon coughed to hide a laugh and shook his head, pretending to focus on the road ahead of them. "We're not in a relationship because it's always going to be Stefan," the doppelganger in the front seat added. "Any relationship we had was purely physical."

"Yeah, for you."

With a roll of her eyes, Katherine leaned over and put her hand on his arm, her lips pulling into a seductive smile. "I'm sorry; did my preference for your baby brother hurt your feelings? Let me fix that..."

There was barely an instant before her lips crushed against the Salvatore's in a rather heated kiss and Lilith's eyes widened at the sight before she turned her head away quickly. "_Ew_." She frowned when she risked a glance up at the front seat to see her mother's lips forming a slight smirk. "Really? C'mon, he's _driving_." They paid her no mind as she crossed her arms and turned to stare out the window again. "Thanks; thank you so much for the years of therapy I'm going to need."

Her gaze didn't leave the darkened landscape even as Damon pushed Katherine away from where she was practically in his lap almost roughly. "I thought I'd give that a shot." A smirk crawled across his features as he glanced over at the frowning doppelganger. "Sorry, but you just don't do it for me anymore."

"Oh, right, you have a thing for the other doppelganger now; silly me for having forgotten."

The vampire in the back seat sat up straighter immediately, leaning forward with an eager glint in her eye. "Elena? I feel like I'm missing a lot of gossip worthy information."

"Time for a snack," he cut in quickly, taking the next exit into a rest area with a disgruntled frown that almost directly mirrored his daughter's own disappointed one. "Besides, this is a family vacation, and it's mommy's turn to drive."

*LIT*

Ziela's victorious grin hadn't left her face all day, even when Jared turned into the driveway of the house in Silver City. "Do you think they're there yet?"

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her eager question. "I _know_ they're there. They left before we did and they had less of a distance to travel." With a shake of his head, he shut off the engine and turned to the vampire in the passenger seat next to him. "If it were up to me, you'd be in Mystic Falls right now too. You haven't seen your sister in months; you should be with her."

"My mother has a point, though; I'm in danger because she's the doppelganger and everyone she cares about it, in some way, one of Klaus's targets." She shrugged and opened the door to slide out of the car. "Thanks for the ride, Jared."

The other vampire shook his head and quickly followed her toward the house. It was ridiculous; she should be able to see her sister without having to worry that her mother's history would be the end of her. "Ziela, wait." He took a moment to think when she turned, a look of cool impatience not quite reaching her eyes. How could he even begin to convey his thoughts? How could he try to convince his niece, what was still a naïve, young child despite how much she's seen and been through, that what her mother was telling her was wrong? It wasn't that Katherine was incorrect - Klaus would always be dangerous - but nothing gave her the right to separate her daughters any longer. "You don't have to do what she says, you know. I can drive you anywhere you want to go, even Mystic Falls."

It was obvious by the look in her eyes and the faint smile playing at her lips that she wanted to say yes, that she wanted to run back to the car and turn up the music for the entire two day drive. But what she wanted and what she was ordered to do by someone she had spent over a century obeying every order of were two very different things. "Thank you for the ride, Jared," Ziela said quietly, turning around again and closing the door behind her when she walked inside.

*LIT*

"Sit down."

She rolled her eyes at her mother's order and sat down on the dew-dampened seat with a sigh. No one dared to go against Katherine's demands, especially not those who had known her for over a century. She was far too terrifying. Lilith said nothing as she watched the bickering begin again, wrapping her arms around herself as she waited for the return of peace.

"This won't get you very many points back home."

Her gaze flickered to the opened trunk of the car at the sound of the doppelganger's words and she frowned in confusion. What had happened that would cause even her mother's voice to sound almost somber? What had she "picked up" from the Gilbert house that had such a negative effect?

Katherine glanced up and nodded toward her before turning to the Salvatore staring wordlessly at the contents of the trunk. "Keep her out of the way. I'll deal with him."

With a slow nod, Damon turned and almost hesitantly walked over to the bench, pausing for only a moment before turning toward the trees. "Let's go for a walk."

*LIT*

The way they acted around each other now was much different than four and a half months ago when they first met. Their relationship back then was formed around a mutual hatred, not a mutual grief. They used to be able to go out and have fun and act normal. Now, their memories were tainted by those months they spent not knowing if the other was even alive or it they could really trust anyone other than themselves.

Four months of lies and death and sleepless nights had brought them to this moment, to this reunion. So many things, so many trivial choices, had led up to this instant. They were far enough away that they couldn't even see the bright red paint of the car before she spoke in a quiet, almost scared voice.

The formerly peaceful trees around them seemed almost menacing, looming over them, dark shadows against the harsh light of the moon. It was almost exactly the opposite of what he'd been expecting her to say. He'd been expecting something along the lines of her missing him, or being glad that he was alive, not a murder confession. How was he supposed to react to that? He didn't know if she wanted comfort or bragging rights or if a hug would be enough to lessen her guilt. It was hard to remember his own first kill, all of it a blur except for the overwhelming desire to turn it all off, as Stefan clearly had.

In the extended silence, she didn't know what else to do. "Lots of someones, actually." her voice was even, like a mercenary's after his hundredth kill. Had Klaus really brainwashed her so much that she didn't care about all the destruction and death she'd helped create? Had she really let him get so far into her head? "But the kill I'm referring to was different; he was just a little kid."

He almost let out a sigh of relief when her voice broke, when he could tell by how weighted down she looked that it could have happened years ago and it would have still affected her the way it should. That she was letting her humanity react for her.

"April twenty second." The date would always be ingrained in her head, always haunting her, reminding her of the things she did that she can't undo, the life she took that she can't give back.

*LIT*

Her arm ached from Klaus's tight hold and she could feel bruises forming just below her skin. "You've been busted; prank night is cancelled." The hybrid spoke in a false accent that made her skin crawl and Elena fought to suppress a shudder as everyone filed dejectedly out of the gym. "I know you two." The doppelganger's gaze moved up to the two people who had paused in the doorway. "Chad, was it? Come back here, both of you." Both Chad and Dana paused for a moment before they started back toward the middle of the room, their shoes squeaking on the floor. "Dana, lift your foot please, Love." She did so without question as his pupils dilated, his compulsion taking hold of her, as he turned to the other human in front of him. "Chad, if she lets her foot touch the ground, I want you to beat her until she dies."

Elena's eyes widened when he nodded mindlessly, struggling to pull her arm from the Original hybrid's grasp. "No! They don't have anything to do with this; your problem is with _me_."

"You're right, Love, I do have a problem with you." The bother turned when the double doors opened loudly, Stefan leading the small wave of people into the mostly empty gym. "Hello, Stefan. I see you and Rebekah have found the requested audience members for our show." His lips curled into an almost victorious grin as he released the clearly terrified doppelganger's arm. "'Bekah, where is the werewolf?" The blonde vampire smirked and pushed Tyler forward through the small crowd. "Ah, yes, the Lockwood boy." His grin seemed to widen as he grabbed hold of the werewolf's arm. "Perfect. Now, as I was just about to tell Elena, my hybrids are dying, and I think it might have something to do with her still being alive. I suggest you find a way to fix that. I also suggest that you do it fast, for Tyler's sake."

Before anyone could even move, Klaus bit into his wrist and held it firmly to Tyler's mouth, the cracking of bones splitting the air a few moments later.

*LIT*

Ziela frowned at the sound of Jared's persistent knocking and sat down on the couch, turning up the volume on the television. She wanted peace until her mother called and said it was safe to return home, but he wouldn't let her have it. "Go away."

"Let me in, Z."

His voice was firm enough to make her stand and stalk to the door, but she didn't lift her hand to the doorknob. "_Go away_, Jared. I want to watch TV and _relax_." She turned to go back to the couch, shaking her head in annoyance. Couldn't he at least _try_ to leave her alone?

The knocking continued. "Ziela, I will break down this door." She didn't doubt that he would, but that didn't mean she was going to listen to him. "If you don't open this door by the time I count to ten, I'm calling your mother." The dhampir glanced at the purse beside her on the couch where she'd hidden her ancestor's cell phone. "One, two, three..."

"Just save yourself the time and call her now; I'm not letting you in."

There was a short pause before he spoke again. "Where the hell is my phone?"

"Oh hush, Jared; you'll wake the neighbors."

*LIT*

It was almost half an hour before Lilith followed Damon back to the car. "Jeremy!" She sprinted forward at the sight of her friend, a wide grin spreading across her features. Throwing her arms around his neck, the vampire easily pulled him time from his seat atop the picnic table.

"I'm barely taller than you anymore." His grin mirrored hers as he wrapped his arms almost protectively around her. "And you're a lot stronger than I remember." He had to keep the conversation light, for her sake, for his sake. He couldn't mention Klaus, or Stefan, or anything that could remotely relate to werewolf bites or anything else that happened on her birthday.

It was a long moment before she spoke quietly. "It's because of Stefan. He killed me and I woke up in transition." The human's arms tightened around her instantly and they both looked up when Katherine cleared her throat. "Really? You're choosing to speak _right now_?"

"Your Gilbert has a new text from Witchy Bennett. _Jeremy, where are you? We need your ghost help._" The doppelganger was practically grinning as she stepped forward, taking a seat on the surface of the table. "I wonder if anyone else knows about your ghost girls." Her grin only widened at the sight of Lilith's confused frown. "He's been seeing Vicki, Matt's sister, and that friend you once had. What was her name again? Annie?"

"Her name was _Anna_," Damon cut in, shaking his head. "We get it, Katherine, you're a bitch; you don't have to constantly prove it." He crossed his arms as he leaned back against the car. "Why did you kidnap Indiana Jones?"

She didn't bother to roll her eyes as she jumped down from the table and walked over to stand beside him. "What if I told you that there was a way to kill Klaus? Not dagger-dead, but dead-dead?"

The Salvatore arched a brow, shaking his head again. "I'd say you're either desperate or lying." He paused, cocking his head in thought. "Or drunk. Or desperate, lying _and_ drunk." Damon took a barely noticeable step away. "I don't see what that has to do with Jeremy."

"You remember my friend Pearl, don't you?" Katherine was practically seated on the hood of the car as she rested her chin on his shoulder. "She knew of a very special way to dispose of an original vampire. Sadly, John Gilbert ran a stake through her heart." The tone of her voice wasn't somber, or even sad. Despite how her words suggested she should feel, she seemed almost... _chipper_. "On a less depressing note, she _did_ tell one person."

Lilith took a small step away from Jeremy and out of his arms, arching a curious eyebrow in her mother's direction. "I'm assuming that our chances of that one person being you are slim to none."

The doppelganger gave a shrug and walked over, keeping her voice casual as she pushed Jeremy down onto the bench. "You're correct on that. She would never tell me; a way to kill Klaus was her leverage. She told her daughter, Anna. I'm sure we all remember that she is also dead, but that brings us right back around to..."

She trailed off, a smirk playing at her lips when Damon finished the sentence for her. "Jeremy."

*LIT*

Caroline's gaze didn't move from Tyler's limp and lifeless form on the ground in front of her even as Rebekah scanned absently through the pictures on Elena's phone. "Your friends better hurry up and find a way to save your boyfriend. My brother has a _monstrous_ temper." The vampire didn't grace her words with a response, hesitantly glancing up when the Original fell unexpectedly silent. She narrowed her eyes and zoomed in on the picture of Elena and Stefan. "My necklace..." Rebekah got to her feet, stomping over to the infant vampire. "Why does that doppelganger bitch have my necklace?"

*LIT*

The dhampir smiled innocently up at a clearly annoyed Jared as she opened the door, holding back a laugh at the sight of the pouring rain. "Jared, what a pleasant surprise; won't you come in?"

"Give me my phone." His hair was dripping from the rain and his body language conveyed more boredom at her antics than frustration. "I'm calling your mother."

She arched an innocent brow and leaned in the doorway, shaking her head. "If I give you the phone, that would get me into trouble, wouldn't it? Why should I give it over if it's just going to put me in a negative situation?" She ignored his narrowed eyes and moved out of the way so he could step out of the rain, shaking her head. "It's evil overlord one-o-one; don't tell the superhero - me, in case you were wondering - your diabolical plan."

Jared rolled his eyes as he kicked the door closed, walking directly over to the couch and turning off the television. "Get your stuff; let's go." He turned to his niece, shaking his head. "And don't say you're staying here. Your mother left me in charge of you, and I refuse to stay in such a small town. Katerina does not get to order me around."

Ziela followed and grabbed her purse before sitting down on the cushion. "I know what you're doing. You're trying to get _laid_. You want to impress my mom by showing her that you can take care of her pride and joy - me, again - so that she'll sleep with you. Don't get your hopes up, Jared; she rarely sleeps with the same man more than once."

He shook his head with a frown, stumbling over his words. "I'm not... I just... I'm not using you to get to your mom. I'm trying to give you power over your mother, to show you that you don't have to do everything she says anymore. Being good doesn't mean you listen to every little thing your mother tells you to do, because the things she tells you to do aren't always good. Katerina Petrova is not _good_; it's not in her nature. She protects herself and those who can help her. Sometimes, there are good people on that list. Other times, good people are killed to protect the people on that list. Just because you're on that list, you don't have to act like she does."

"I don't act like she does." Ziela stood quickly, shaking her head. "I spent months looking for my sister. I spent the night in your car!"

The older vampire wasn't the slightest bit taken aback by her outburst, but his frustration only grew with each sentence he spoke in retort. "You slept in a car? You think that makes you better than your mother? She's put you up on a pedestal for over a century and manipulated you into thinking that nothing you do is wrong. If you think that sleeping in my car _one night_ makes you better than everyone else, you are dead wrong. From what you told me, your sister has spent _months_ living in warehouses, and Niklaus' car, and the woods, and she's killed innocent people but it was never her choice. You're worse than your mother, Ziela, and I'm just trying to show you that you can be so much better than this!"

"Maybe I don't want to be better than this!"

They both fell silent instantly, the tension in the room thickening until they almost had trouble breathing. "Maybe..." The dhampir started again. "Maybe I _like_ that everyone is looking at me like I can't do anything wrong. Maybe I _like_ that my mother gives me everything I want. Who wouldn't? I _like_ my life, Jared; stop trying to mess it up!"

He took a deep breath to get his temper under control, shaking his head. "I'm not trying to mess it up, Z; I'm trying to make it better."

*LIT*

"She doesn't want to help you," Jeremy said again, leaning lazily against the table as he shook his head. "Not surprisingly, she thinks you're not nice."

Beside him, Lilith stifled a laugh, her hand flying to her mouth to hide any evidence of impending giggles. "Well, she's not _wrong_." When she was able to speak normally, the vampire shook her head. "To be honest, I wouldn't help them either."

"At least she's honest," Damon grumbled, shaking his head. "C'mon, Anna, I'm sure Jeremy passed on enough information to you for you to know that Klaus has to be stopped." To anyone who didn't know what he was referring to, the approach made no sense, but Damon knew that Anna and his daughter had been close friends. What Klaus had done would make her talk.

"Mikael," the human at the table said quietly, taking a deep breath before continuing a bit louder. "You're looking for Mikael. He's a hunter, but he's a vampire too." He had to speak quickly to keep up with all the information his ghostly ex-girlfriend was feeding them. "In Charlotte. He can kill Klaus, but you'd have to be fools to wake him."

Katherine and Damon shared a look before the doppelganger nodded, taking a step forward. "Let's go, Gilbert; you're coming with me. Lili, you're going back to Mystic Falls with your father while we go and find Mikael."

The younger vampire nodded wordlessly as she slowly got to her feet, walking toward the car. "Why can't Jeremy come with us? Isn't Mikael supposed to be dangerous?"

"He's our only connection to Anna." Damon shook his head and put a hand on her shoulder, steering her toward the trees. "She'll be able to relay directions through Jeremy so Mikael can be found faster, and we can take out Klaus sooner. The sooner we get rid of Klaus, the better. C'mon, we have to go find the keys."

*LIT*

Klaus stood between Stefan and Elena in the mostly empty gym, Chad and Dana seated somewhere behind them. The doppelganger had long since noticed the absence of the younger vampire she had expected to see with them. She spoke hesitantly, not wanting to anger the hybrid or throw him off guard. "Where's Lilith? She was with you in Chicago; what did you do to her?"

He spun to face her, sounding almost offended at the implication in her voice. "I didn't do anything to her. She chose to leave. I didn't waste my energy trying to find her when she obviously didn't want to be found. She chose loneliness over staying with us; anything that's happened to her since Chicago is on her own hands." Turning back around to Stefan angrily, the hybrid shook his head. "Am I not being utterly truthful, Ripper? Did she not walk out on us?"

"She left." The vampire confirmed his words with a short nod, meeting Elena's gaze over Klaus's shoulder. "We don't have any idea where she is. We would look if we had any leads."

The doppelganger shook her head angrily, opening her mouth to speak only to be cut off by the Original between them. "We're done with conversation." he turned slowly to face the human, shaking his head. "Your friends are taking too long for my taste. I'd like my hybrids by morning. Stefan," Klaus turned again, his pupils dilating in emphasis. "I'm going to start the timer on the scoreboard. If the witch hasn't found a way for my hybrids to survive by the time that countdown hits zero, I want you to feed from your precious Elena. Oh," the hybrid let his mouth curl into a wicked grin, nodding back toward their human audience. "And, if you get hungry, have a few appetizers."

*LIT*

If there had been anyone else in the car, the silence wouldn't have been so awkward. Maybe it was the fact that they'd only had one one-on-one conversation in over four months; maybe it was the fact that they'd been lied to by people they trusted and couldn't risk it happening again; maybe it was that were both exhausted from stress and driving for so long. Maybe, after admitting that she'd killed an innocent child, he was still trying to process the fact that his daughter had decided to become a serial killer in her free time. Maybe it was the fact that they'd both changed so much that they barely knew each other anymore.

The silence was almost a solid object, finding its way into their throats and making breathing almost impossible. They both wanted to say something, but they didn't know _what_ to say. They _needed_ to say something before something changed and took away whatever chance they had left. They hadn't said a word since they got in the car almost three hours before, not even humming along to the radio before all the good stations turned to static. Her gaze was locked on something a thousand miles away, and his entire focus was on the road, but they were hyperaware of every little movement the other made. If she even moved her finger, he knew about it; if he turned the wheel even a fraction of a centimeter, she had to resist the urge to glance over.

Finally, the silence was broken by Damon's almost defeated sigh. "We can't just ignore each other forever." She didn't react, staring out the window with a blank, emotionless expression. "So, you killed people. Big deal. I've killed more people than I can count, but that doesn't make me a bad person. Doing bad things doesn't make you a bad person. I mean, _constantly_ doing bad things makes you a bad person, but not the occasional murder. Okay, so _maybe_murder makes you a bad person, but that makes me an even worse person. Am I making _any_ sense at this point?" Lilith shook her head and shifted in her seat so she could look over at him. "My point is, doing a few bad things so you can survive doesn't mean you're going to be a horrible person; it just means that you value living and existing more than you value your morals. Which, I guess sounds kind of selfish, but everyone is selfish to some degree. Don't let your past haunt you until you can't think for yourself."

There was a short pause before she spoke, her voice quiet. "Has that ever happened to you? Did... did you ever do something that made you doubt every decision you'd ever made?"

The silence reclaimed the constricting confines of the car for a long moment, making the small space almost claustrophobically so. "Yeah. Once." He fell silent for a moment before starting to explain quietly. "As you know, I spent a century and half searching for your mother, but I never found her. When we opened the tomb, where she was supposed to be, and she wasn't there... I spent probably two weeks - at least, that's how Stefan was acting, I was too far gone to even know that time was passing - feeding on, and draining, if I felt like it, any sorority girl I could get back to the boarding house. I had to keep up appearances to stay under Liz's radar, of course, but otherwise, I wasn't really even there." Silence enveloped the car for a long minute and she was beginning to think the short tale was over. Then he spoke again. "They were one short for the bachelor raffle and Liz volunteered me to fill in. I knew Alaric's ex-wife, I'd turned her a few years before, actually, and we didn't really like each other much back then. I just wanted to get under his skin... What I didn't know was that Isobel, Alaric's wife, was Elena's biological mother. I'd made some stupid comment about how _delicious_ she'd been... Needless to say, she wasn't happy with me."

Lilith nodded slowly and folded her hands in her lap. It almost seemed ridiculous to worry about her short span of unadulterated murder when her father and uncle had been falling on and off the wagon for over a century. It was easy for her to slip back into how things had been before Stefan and Klaus dragged her up and down the eastern seaboard, but for them, they weren't synced enough for things to go back to normal. More and more tragic things seemed to happen the longer the brothers were out of touch with each other. Things were only going to get worse after this mess; Damon would blame Stefan for the fact that she had transitioned, when he'd only done everything he did to get the werewolf bite cure.

Everything could be fine now if they'd just had more warning about Klaus and the sacrifice, or if he hadn't been and idiot and forced his blood down Elena's throat, or if he'd just let Tyler die. It was far too easy for him to blame himself for everything that had happened since then: Stefan leaving, Lilith dying and turning, even Andie's death. If he had just done one thing differently, everything now would be different; maybe better, maybe worse, but still _different_. And that was all he wanted.

"How'd you escape?" his voice was a bit louder than before as he glanced over at her, a slight frown pulling at his lips.

Shaking her head, his daughter pulled her knees up to her chest and turned to stare out the window. "I didn't escape. I'm still the same person I was in Chicago, or Tennessee, or anywhere else they dragged me. The only thing that's different is that I no longer trust either one of them." She knew that wasn't what he meant, but everything she said had been true; Klaus and Stefan weren't to be trusted and the things she'd done had changed her. "But that's not what you meant. Nik' and 'Bekah were arguing and I needed to leave before they drove me insane."

It was strange to think about how familiar she was with the small band of immoral immortals. She'd even begun using the familial nicknames they used with each other. She had just started to get used to having Rebekah around and traveling with her uncle had just started to feel normal when yet another life was stolen away from her. Simply stated, she died. When Stefan drained her life from her, she not only died in the literal sense, but the old her had died as well. If she'd been more alert, or if she hadn't gone two days without feeding, she could have easily stopped her uncle, or at least tried to reason with him.

Now, she was a different person.

She was colder, darker. Emotions were a nuisance. Humans existed as a means to food. Lilith wasn't a ripper, but one push in the wrong direction would send her flying from the wagon she was barely hanging onto. Her hunger didn't control her, not yet, at least; she fed when she was hungry and that was that. As a vampire, she hadn't had a victim yet who lived. Thankfully, Klaus had shown her how to hide her handiwork, to make it look like an animal attack or an accident. The only kill that attracted attention was the boy, and they skipped town the next day.

"Klaus and Rebekah," she corrected herself, shaking her head. "They had the whole sibling rivalry thing going on and then Stefan joined in and I was about to stake one of them if I didn't get out of there before I was dragged into it." Surprisingly, Damon actually let out a chuckle at the thought of his daughter standing over the staked body of his brother. "Yeah, laugh all you want, but you'd be mad at me if I really did it." She shook her head again and waited for him to stop laughing before she continued. "Anyway, I left Gloria's and this guy was following. Then mom got there and she basically kidnapped me and drove me to Mystic Falls before I could really understand what was happening."

There was a long moment of silence as Damon focused on the road, finally glancing over at her a few minutes later. "So, who was your stalker?"

*LIT*

"Jared," Ziela frowned when he took the Denver exit, shaking her head. "It was nice of you to drive me an hour to Denver, but you kind of gave this big epic speech about how I could go back to Mystic Falls if I wanted to, and I was kind of expecting you to drive to Mystic Falls. Honestly, I feel a bit cheated."

The vampire rolled his eyes and stopped at a red light, glancing over at the dhampir in the seat beside him. "I have to make a quick stop first. Then we can go wherever you want. Mystic Falls, Paris, London, Venice, whatever; I really don't care, but I need to make this stop."

Arching a brow, she physically turned into her seat with a curious smile. "You seem pretty hung up on this visit. Who are you seeing? Do you have a girlfriend? You do, don't you? _And_ you're into my mom? I have to say, Jared, I'm feeling a bit scandalized, here."

"She's just a friend." Jared said quickly, moving forward with the traffic. "Tia is... She's a good friend, okay? Just wait in the car, all right? I'll go in and talk to her, and I'll be back in like ten minutes. I visit whenever I'm in Colorado. She's like a sister to me." He nodded and turned down a side street, pulling up outside of a simple two-story white house. "Wait here," the vampire said firmly before getting out of the car and starting for the door.

*LIT*

The human beside her was playing with the radio as she drove, and it was driving Katherine insane. "Maroon 5 or Ed Sheeran, Gilbert; just pick one." He continued to flip between the two stations for a few moments before she reached over and smacked his hand away, leaving the end of the Ed Sheeran song to play through the otherwise silent car.

*LIT*

Stefan had already drained Chad and Dana by the time the scoreboard was down to two minutes. "Elena... you need to run. If you don't, I'll feed... And a ripper doesn't stop..."

The stubborn doppelganger shook her head, crossing her arms across her chest. "No, Stefan; I'm not going to leave."

Of course she wouldn't leave; she'd spent months searching for him, risking her life and his brother's. If she was going to give up on him, she would have done it already - before Klaus found out she was still alive and threatened to kill all of her friends, before she knew what he had become, before he basically dumped her in Chicago. No. Elena had put too much time and energy into getting him back; there was no way of making her give up now.

Then, the beeping marking thirty seconds began. "Elena..." he tried one last time to convince her to go, to flee, to _live_.

"I'm not going anywhere, Stefan." Her voice was firm, resolved. There was no way she was leaving him now.

*LIT*

"I thought I told you to wait in the car?"

Ziela grinned innocently up at her vampire ancestor. "Technically, you told me to wait in the car and then asked if it was all right." There was a short pause as he stared down at her, waiting impatiently for an explanation. "It's not all right."

He rolled his eyes and knocked on the big green door. "Go wait in the car, Ziela. I'll do this on my own and be there in a few minutes." The dhampir didn't even blink. There was a mysterious girl _and_ he had a thing for her mom? She wouldn't be going anywhere until she got answers. With a sigh, Jared shook his head. "Fine; you can stay, but no talking unless you're spoken to first, go it?"

"It's not the nineteenth century anymore, Jared; I can speak whenever I want to."

The door opened before he could reply and a shrill cry of excitement made him cover his ears. "Jared!" The girl had long, dark brown hair and healthily tanned skin, practically jumping forward to throw her arms around the vampire's neck. "How have you been?"

He chuckled at her enthusiasm and shook his head, returning her welcome embrace. "I'm about to be deaf, Tia. We've talked about this; vampire - sensitive ears." Her tinkling laugh made the dhampir standing a few feet away shift her weight awkwardly. It was strange to see him with someone he was so familiar with. She was used to seeing Jared as the closed off, emotionally defensive vampire that a thousand years of darkness and murder and betrayal had made him, not the almost brotherly figure that had his arms protectively around the girl in front of her. She missed _her_ Jared, the one who gave her a long speech that basically boiled down to the fact that her mother was a bitch who ordered her around, the one who drove her to Tennessee and Chicago and back to Colorado so she could find and help her sister, the one who made her realize that she'll end up just as cold and heartless as her mother if she didn't suck things up and change her ways. Someone he probably hadn't even seen in years had stolen her friend in an instant. It wasn't fair.

Want to introduce me to your friend, Jare?"

Ziela was pulled out of her thoughts by the girl's voice and she smiled politely, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her jacket and balancing her weight on both feet in case of attack. "Tia, this is Ziela Pierce." She let her smile slowly fade as she took a small step forward, finding a quarter in her pocket to twirl between her fingers. "She was supposed to wait in the car."

Tia stepped forward and pulled the dhampir into an eager hug, not even reacting when she stiffened at the unexpected embrace. "I'm Laurentia. If Jared ever gives you any problems, you let me know, okay? I'll restrict his Tony privileges." Pulling back she noticed the clearly written confusion on Ziela's face. "Oh, Tony is Jared's puppy. He stays with me while Jared travels."

"Stop calling him Tony; that's not his name." The vampire crossed his arms and shook his head as the two girls separated. "His name is _Stark_, and if you keep calling him Tony, he's gonna' get confused."

His dhampiric travelling companion let out a laugh and shook her head. "Why do you call him Tony?"

"Tony Stark." Tia said simply with a shrug as she grabbed their hands. "Come in and see Tony."

"That's not his name!"

*LIT*

Sharp pain was still shooting from her neck when Elena opened her eyes hours after Stefan's fangs initially broke through her skin. "Damon...?" The dark haired vampire pulled the needle from her arm and gently pulled the blankets from around her. "Klaus... and Stefan... she wasn't with them..."

He nodded and lifted her into his arms, starting for the door. "I know; she's waiting in the car." He didn't let the doppelganger say anything more, holding her protectively to his chest as he carried her down the empty hospital hallways. It shouldn't have gotten this far; Klaus never should have been able to get close enough to hurt or influence anyone, let alone the people he cared most about. He shouldn't have left long enough to give that damn hybrid the chance; he shouldn't have saved Tyler and given him the opportunity to bite him. More than anyone else, Damon blamed himself. His choices and actions had gotten them into more than anyone else's, and blaming others for what he had done wouldn't turn back the clock and make everything better.

Lilith was pacing around the car when he got back outside and she looked up worriedly at the sound of the opening door. "How bad is she?"

"Open the passenger door and get in the back."

She hesitated for a moment before nodding and pulling the door open, walking around to the other side of the car to stay out of the way while she got in. The click of the seatbelt was almost deafeningly loud in the wordless silence as Damon closed the passenger door and walked around to the driver's side to get in, peeling out of the parking space and speeding down the road toward the boarding house.

*LIT*

Stefan and Rebekah shared an anxious glance as Klaus paced back and forth in front of them. Despite having succeeded in making Tyler Lockwood his first hybrid, he was still beyond pissed, and he'd yet to tell them why. "She knows everything now." His two onlookers wore mirroring frowns of confusion. What difference did it make if Elena knew anything? "We should have stopped her before she could have left. Katerina has something to do with this; I know she does."

Elena left? Katherine had something to do with it? Nothing he said was making any sense. "Nik'?" his sister asked cautiously. "What are you talking about?"

"Isn't it obvious, Rebekah?" He spun to face her, shaking his head. "Damon confronted me less than an hour ago about Elena, and I'm sure you wouldn't need more that a single guess to know who was with him." The Ripper's eyes widened, the hybrid's vague words slowly beginning to make sense.

Lilith knew everything.

*LIT*

Ziela laughed as the golden retriever puppy dashed between her and Jared again, putting his tiny paws on the vampire's knees. "C'mere, Tony!" she called out with another laugh.

"That's not his name!" He laughed as he shook his head. "It's _Stark_."

"Yeah, _Tony_ Stark," Tia cut in from her spot on the couch. "We can call him Tony if we want to!"

*LIT*

Her hands shook as she held the glass of bourbon close to her knees, wondering what she'd done to ever deserve any of this. She's been hunted down and killed, and now Klaus set Stefan on her just to get her blood for his hybrids. He had Stefan on his side, and he even had his sister with him. Why did he need any hybrids?

"You don't have to drink that if you don't want to."

Elena looked up at the sound of Damon's voice, shaking her head and setting the glass down on the table beside her. He'd saved her - again - and now he was taking time away from his daughter, who he hadn't seen in over four months, to make sure she was okay. He shouldn't be doing this. He should be upstairs, making sure there wasn't any permanent damage to Lilith's psyche after anything Klaus did or told her or convinced her of. "You don't have to stay down here with me. You should be upstairs."

The vampire shook his own head, putting his hand over hers. "You lost a lot of blood, Elena. I'm just here to make sure you're okay." he let a small smile crawl across his features. "Besides, she's just as worried as I am."

"Well, isn't this cozy?" Damon jumped up protectively at the sound of his brother's voice, standing between him and Elena while calculating how quickly he could get to and up the stairs if he needed to. "Oh, don't stop on my account. I'm not here to hurt you, Elena. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Your blood is the only thing that can create hybrids. You can see why Klaus would want to keep you alive. He's granted me the responsibility of protecting you."

*LIT*

Katherine pushed the rusty gate to the tomb open and nodded for Jeremy to follow her inside. The doppelganger pushed the lid of the sole stone coffin away and grinned triumphantly down at the grayed body of the vampire hunter inside. "Wakey wakey, Mikael."

**A/N**

**Okay, 7 or 8 people are following this story, and I'm getting over 100 views per chapter, but I'm only getting two or three reviews. Can that change? That'd be great. I have the next chapter written, and I'm working on typing it so I can send it to my beta. I won't post it until I have at least five reviews on this chapter. Sound fair? Cool.**

**Me: …**

**Jeremy: x.x**

**Me: …**

**Jeremy: x.x**

**Me: …**

**Jeremy: *le gasp***

**Me: You're alive!**

**Jeremy: *pants***

**Me: …**

**Jeremy: Hi…?**

**Me: I can has disclaimer?**

**Jeremy: Uh… Yeah, sure. TheDhampir doesn't own TVD in any way, shape, or form.**

**Me: You're so much more cooperative than Daddy 'Lijah and the DST bag…**

**Jeremy: Huh?**

**Me: Nothing!**

**I miss Jeremy. And Kol. And Alaric. And I want Giuseppe back on the show, to be honest. And human Damon would be cool. And Malijah being canon would be awesome… That's my wishlist for this season, basically. Don't forget to review! Did you have a favorite part of the chapter? A favorite scene? A favorite conversation? Was there something you hated? I'd love to know! Also: GO TO MY PROFILE RIGHT NOW. Thank you!**

**Peace In!**


	6. Die Young

**A/N**

**So, I didn't wait for 5 reviews, but whatever. Also, I went through and edited this myself, and it is therefore not beta'd. Chapter 7 is almost complete, and I'll probably post it next weekend if not at some point during the week. After that chapter, I'll be taking a break from this fic and working on a one-shot for a friend's birthday. That one-shot should be posted on April 18****th****, so it won't be too much of a hiatus from this fic. That said, enjoy chapter six!**

_Looking for some trouble tonight,_  
_Take my hand, I'll show you the wild side,_  
_Like it's the last night of our lives._  
_We'll keep dancing 'til we die._  
-Ke$ha, _Die Young_

An annoyed frown crossed over Damon's face when he saw the state of the living room, shaking his head. There were at least a dozen girls around the room, some already dead while one was draped across the couch and three more were giggling and balancing as best they could on the Twister mat. Stefan was wearing a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes and drying blood created a strange red gloss on his lips. "Good morning, brother. Care for a spin?"

"The two brunettes on the staircase owe me a Persian rug." Damon ignored his brother's offer and shook his head again, turning when Lilith's footsteps carried her into the room. "Did you know about this?" The elder Salvatore brother's frustrated expression turned to one of annoyance at the sound of the spinner and he turned to face Stefan again. "Would you _stop__that_? I can't think with all the noise you're making."

Before either of them could respond, the front door was pushed open and a familiar blonde Original walked in. "My brother left me here. He actually _left_ me here." Lilith glanced over to her uncle and he shook his head, a silent signal to not ask any questions. She gave a short nod before turning her attention back to a practically fuming Rebekah, knowing it would be worse for all of them if all eyes weren't on her. "You two are still sharing your damn looks? You're both infuriatingly annoying."

Damon looked over at his brother and daughter, frowning when neither of them would meet his gaze. They shouldn't have anything to hide from him, especially after they'd already come clean about all the killing they'd been doing, so why were they hiding things from him now? He turned to the mysterious blonde vampire after a moment, his frown morphing into one of confusion. "Who're you?"

"Rebekah. Pleasure, I'm sure." She pushed past him to move toward the stairs, one of the shopping bags in her hand hitting his knee and almost sending him to the floor. "Which room's mine?" She shrugged when no one responded after a few moments, shaking her head. "Fine. I'll figure it out for myself."

Stefan struggled to hold back a laugh at the scene in front of him, his expression turning serious under his brother's glare. "Word of advice about Bekah: just do as she asks, and no one will get hurt." His words were meant jokingly but no one missed the hint of truth in his tone. He looked over at his niece and then to his brother as he stood, waving his hand toward the discarded women in the room. "You guys can clean this up, can't you?" He didn't give them a chance to reply before walking out the door, leaving them with no choice but to do just that.

*LIT*

Caroline sighed almost triumphantly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Hello, senior year." She was grinning despite the events of the night before, determined to not let the stress get to her. "This year will be our best year yet. I mean, so what if Tyler is a hybrid and Klaus may end up using him for some sort of army? This year will be _great_.""

Elena looked back at her friends and forced a small smile for their sakes, shaking her head as she walked toward the school doors. "It's our anniversary." Her voice was quiet, but both of them heard her. "Technically, Stefan and I met on the first day of school last year." It didn't hurt to talk about her relationship with Stefan as much as she thought it would, but there was still a faint pang of longing in her chest when she thought of the vampire who used to love her.

As much as it hurt to admit it, it was true; Stefan didn't feel anything for her anymore, for _anyone_ anymore. He had turned off all of his emotions until nothing mattered anymore except for the blood. He didn't love her; he didn't even care that her life was in danger on a daily basis; he was only protecting her because Klaus ordered him to. After all that time, and everything they'd been through, he'd given up entirely and let Klaus into his head until he was nothing more than a puppet.

"Okay, no more discussing our sad boy troubles," her vampire best friend announced, shaking her head. "We're going to enjoy the fact that we're alive and help Lilith adjust to life in Mystic Falls again. I'm going to start by sending a very helpful text and tell her to get her butt here."

The vampire in question appeared behind her moments later, an arched eyebrow announcing her amusement. "Save your minutes, Barbie; I'm here." She wore a weak smile, obviously still adjusting to being around so many humans again. "Sorry, I'm late. I got stuck cleaning up Twister and booze."

Elena had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the thought. "_Twister_? When did that start?

"Around five this morning when Stefan brought home a dozen and a half sorority chicks and decided to drain them dry." She was quiet enough that no one around them heard her shocking words, but the trio of friends had fallen silent as they tried to process what exactly that meant. Lilith's eyes widened when she realized what she said. "Sorry; vampirism makes me blunt." She turned to retrieve something from her bag, shaking her head. "I need to get to class. I'll see you guys later."

She disappeared down the hallway before they could comment and Caroline looked hesitantly over at Elena. "Don't worry about her, Elena. I'm sure Stefan isn't that far gone. Being with Klaus for months doesn't making lying excusable."

The doppelganger gaped at her friend, her head shaking slowly. "You didn't see him like I did last night, Caroline. I don't think she's lying."

"Of course you don't. Damon's gotten in your head the last few months, so of course you trust his daughter." The vampire shook her head with a huff. "She's been with _Klaus_ all summer, Elena, she's gonna know how to lie. Draining sorority girls is Damon's thing; Stefan wouldn't do that."

Elena pressed her lips into a firm line and shook her head. "Exactly - she's been with Klaus all summer. We know that Stefan threw away control for all those months, but what did Lilith do? There's no way Klaus let her continue her animal diet. Did she kill anyone? How many people? How much guilt is she carrying around?" She didn't give Caroline or Bonnie a chance to respond before grabbing her phone from her pocket and starting down the hall.

Caroline was being ridiculous. Didn't it matter that Damon's entire living family had been practically abducted and then forced to kill? The past for months had changed everything - Lilith was more suspicious of everyone, Stefan had no control, Damon was more protective, Elena herself was more on edge. But Caroline was still Caroline. It didn't matter to her that everyone and everything had changed; she still saw the black and white.

"Hello?"

A soft sigh of near relief fell from her lips at the sound of the Salvatore's voice. "How is he?"

It didn't surprise him that she'd ask about Stefan before anything else, but he still took a moment to answer. "Oh, you know Stefan - pouting, brooding, shaping his hair." A part of her wanted to believe that he was right, that Stefan was clean and back on animal blood, but she couldn't just throw out the information that Lilith had given her. she'd been with the wrong crowd for far too long, yes, but they had lied to her for the full period of time; she wouldn't stoop to their level. "You might want to stay away from the boarding house for a while." Elena stood up a bit straighter at his warning. Maybe he was lying; maybe he was trying to protect her from the truth - something his daughter couldn't care less about. "We have a new house mate: Barbie Klaus."

"_Rebekah_?" His confession had nothing to do with Stefan. She'd been wrong and Caroline was right; Lilith had been around Klaus for too long and it had changed her. "I can be there in ten minutes. Just let me-"

"Is that the bell?" Damon asked hurriedly, cutting her off. "Ring, ring! I'll let you go; you don't want to be late for class."

He hung up before she could insist on a visit and she shook her head, putting her phone back into her pocket and closing her locker. She'd been so sure that Caroline was wrong, that Stefan really had lost his control, if only it meant that Lilith hadn't completely gone down the wrong path. It felt strange to be the only person who even wanted to believe the younger vampire, like she wanted to think that everyone else was wrong but part of her knew that they weren't. She felt ridiculous for ever believing the nothing the stupid notion that Stefan of all people had lost any and all control he clung to.

Lost in thought, the doppelganger nearly ran into Caroline and Tyler, frowning when he heard her friend's words. "Vampire 101 - don't wear your breakfast to school." Elena followed them into the restroom, wetting a paper towel with cold water and passing it to Caroline so she could begin to dab the dried blood from the hybrid's shirt. "Dammit, Tyler. You can't just go around eating people."

"What are you talking about? It was a blood bag." He peered over her shoulder to look back at Elena. "Word on the street is that our favorite second-gen Salvatore is back in town. And, by "word on the street," I mean Jeremy texted me last night."

The doppelganger nodded, a small smile pulling at her lips. "Yeah, she's here today. You might see her later." She turned slightly to face Caroline. "I'll see you in class." They both nodded in pseudo dismissal as she went, the door closing just moments before she ran directly into someone.

"We really should stop meeting like this." She froze at the sound of the familiar voice, slowly looking up until she was eye to eye with Stefan.

*LIT*

Her dark hair flew up when she jumped, familiar arms wrapping around her waist. "Hi there." She let out a giggle and shook her head, turning slowly in Jeremy's arms. "Long time no see, Jer Bear."

"I thought we already discussed the various nicknames your dad has given me and how you're not supposed to use them."

Lilith shook her head and put her arms around his neck in a quasi-hug. "You had that nickname long before you met any member of my family and you know it." Pulling away, she turned back to her open locker, removing the history textbook to put it in her bag. "I'm heading to Saltzman's class, but I'll talk to you later, okay?"

He leaned in and kissed her cheek, causing a faint blush to creep across her skin. "I'll save you a seat at lunch."

*LIT*

Alaric Saltzman's first period history class was a bit different than he'd expected it to be. He'd known that Matt, Elena, Caroline, Bonnie and Tyler would be there, but Stefan and Rebekah threw him off guard, and even though he knew Lilith was back in town, he hadn't expected her to actually be in school. Surprisingly enough, the real tension wasn't even between Elena and Stefan, but Lilith and almost everyone else in the room.

Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that she was having trouble readjusting to life in Mystic Falls, but the fact that she was sitting as far away from her fellow supernatural denizens as possible had him worrisome. When the bell finally rang fifty minutes into the start of class, everyone scrambled to their feet to get out the door and to their next class. "Remember your homework for Friday," he reminded them over the dozen conversations. "One paragraph about how world war two affected the economy."

The classroom was empty within another minute and he took the short spurt of free time between classes to take a deep breath and go over his notes for the next group of unruly students.

*LIT*

"You're coming to the bonfire tonight, aren't you?" Caroline asked the almost full lunch table eagerly. A grin spread across her features when the majority of the people around her nodded, choosing to go along with whatever their vampire friend wanted.

Elena was the only one who didn't respond right away, focusing instead on the plate of salad in front of her. "I don't think I'm going." She shrugged, ignoring the wide-eyed looks she was getting from everyone around her. "I don't have the best of luck with bon fires."

The blonde vampire nodded once and turned to Tyler, resuming a previous conversation as everyone else politely turned their attention back to the trays of food on the table in front of them. The volume of conversation at the table had just gotten back to a normal level when Lilith walked up and sat in the empty seat between Jeremy and Matt, causing Caroline to fall silent for a moment before speaking again, a bit louder than necessary. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be sitting by your new friends Stefan and Rebekah?" When the former dhampir chose to ignore her, Caroline's voice grew louder still. "Oh, so you spent a summer with Klaus and suddenly you're too good for us?"

"_Caroline_," Elena warned, putting her fork down. "Would you lay off?"

The two vampires stared at each other for a long moment before Lilith got to her feet with a frown. "Fine. I'll see you at the bon fire tonight."

There was an almost victorious smirk on Caroline's features before she'd even turned around completely, Jeremy's own face contorting into a frown as he stood. "You don't have to be a bitch about it."

"Well, when she stops killing innocent people, she can sit with us." The blonde gave a short shrug and turned toward the now empty chair to talk to Tyler, frowning in confusion and looking up at him. "Where are you going?"

The hybrid shook his head and followed after Jeremy, not gracing her question with a response. "Hey, wait up."

With a bitter frown, Caroline turned to the three other people at the table, shaking her head as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Can you believe them?"

*LIT*

"Do I really have to go back tomorrow?"

School had been out for almost three hours and Lilith was the only person not getting ready for the bonfire. She didn't see the point - Caroline obviously wasn't her biggest fan, and all the other members of Team Stefan probably didn't appreciate her sharing his eating habits. "I though you liked school?" Damon asked with a confused frown, watching as she rolled the apple she'd grabbed back and forth on the countertop. "You were the one who wanted to go in the first place."

She shrugged and put the apple back into its basket. "Senior year isn't as fun as I thought it'd be. I'll go back again next week and make up all my work, I swear, but I'm still adjusting."

With a slow nod, he walked around the island to sit beside her. "Okay. Do you want to tell me what's _really_ wrong?" Somehow, he was able to see right through the mask she'd tried to put on and keep pushing until he got answers. "I know it isn't adjusting because Ric said you were doing fine - no signs of hunger on the horizon."

She sighed and folded her hands on the countertop, putting her head down. "Have you heard about how _perfect_ Stefan is recently?" Lilith didn't even try to sound less annoyed than she felt, knowing it was pointless. "Because I have. Like fifty times."

"Were Caroline and Elena going all Team Stefan on you? It's really easier to just ignore them."

With a roll of her eyes, she shook her head and sat up straight again. "Not Elena. I don't see why Caroline doesn't just date him, because she obviously loves him oh so much." She jumped off the stool with a laugh, shaking her head again. "They need a couple name. Stefoline?"

"Carefan?"

"Forbatore?"

"Now they sound like a rejected transformer."

They burt into laughter just as Stefan came down the stairs, a frown of confusion creeping across his features. "What's so funny?"

Damon grinned widely and jumped up, walking over to stand behind his brother. "Look, Lili; it's half of the rejected transformer."

*LIT*

Elena, Caroline, Tyler, Alaric, Jeremy, Lilith and Damon sat idly in the history classroom, each trying to take down Stefan after the elder Salvatore revealed that he had, in fact, fallen off the wagon again. "Why do we have to take Stefan out at all?" Tyler asked after a few minutes. "I mean, it seems stupid to get on Klaus's bad side. Aren't we trying to help him create his hybrids so he'll leave us alone?"

"Nothing we do should ever benefit Klaus." Lilith shook her head, grumbling bitterly. That damn hybrid had kidnapped and lied to her for months, but no one seemed to understand that. Caroline doubted everything she did or said until someone that she deemed worthy could verify it, and now Tyler wanted to _help_ him.

Wait.

"Uh oh..."

Caroline spun quickly at the sound of Damon's voice, practically fuming. "We can do without the commentary, Salvatore." Before she could move to stop him, he had an empty syringe of what used to be vervain in his hand and Tyler was on the floor. "What the hell was that for?" she demanded, stomping over to kneel beside her fallen boyfriend.

"He's sired to Klaus," Damon said simply, turning to face the rest of his audience as Jeremy helped Caroline get Tyler into a chair. "Because it was Klaus's blood that turned him, he's basically a slave to whatever the Original hybrid dick asks him to do. It's supposed to be rare but maybe hybrids are different. In order to not have this entire plan blow up in our faces, we'll have to work around our lack of willing conspirators. Elena and Ric, you're on Stefan duty. Distract him long enough to vervain him and get him to the basement of the boarding house. Caroline, keep Tyler out of the way. If he ruins any aspect of tonight, it's on you. Lilith and MiniGilbert, occupy yourselves. You'll be the eyes and ears - if you see or hear anything that could be a danger to the plan, you get to me or Elena as quickly as possible."

Everyone nodded, too focused on what they needed to do to protest, and departed to execute the plan.

*LIT*

"Your dad's a cool guy and all, but it's impossible to keep myself occupied without more alcohol."

Lilith rolled her eyes at yet another of Jeremy's complaints, shaking her head. "Jeremy, we're at a crowded bon fire and I haven't had anything to eat since Chicago. How do you think I feel?" They were both quiet for a moment before she turned and handed her half-empty red solo cup to him. "Here. Just don't let me go on a murderous rampage, okay?"

*LIT*

Stefan sighed and looked up at the drunken doppelganger at the top of the bleachers, shaking his head in annoyance. "You're hilarious." He'd been following her around since her fifth cup of alcohol and she was dancing around the top four rows of bleachers, climbing over the railing. "Elena, get down here before you hurt yourself."

"Hey, look, Stefan - no hands."

He rolled his eyes with a sigh, shaking his head again. "You're gonna get yourself killed, and then Klaus and Damon will team up just to kill me. Would you get down from there?"

The doppelganger paid him no mind, grinning and laughing as she held onto the railing tightly. Without warning, her foot slipped from its hold and her arms ached from supporting all of her weight. She began to fall at the exact moment that Stefan pushed himself into action, using his vampire speed to catch her just moments before she would have hit the ground.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as they watched each others' faces, watching for any hint of what they'd had before he left, for any hint that they could go back to that. She didn't realize that he'd already set her back on her feet until their gazes were torn away from each other and he had nearly collapsed against her, one of Alaric's vervain tipped arrows sticking from his back. She'd known that it would happen like this - that was the plan - but it still hurt to see how vulnerable he was after just two humans got him into their trap. _Damon would be proud_, she thought absently. It was true; he'd praise her for being strong enough to take on Stefan even when she didn't want to because it was necessary.

There was no telling what he would do if they couldn't get him under control.

*LIT*

Rebekah frowned at yet another burned marshmallow, glaring over at Damon when he laughed. "You find pleasure in my misfortune, Salvatore?" She grabbed a new marshmallow from the bag between them, her frown deepening with frustration. "I don't know what I'm doing. It's not my fault I was in a coffin for ninety years."

"If you'd just let me help you, they wouldn't catch on fire." He reached over and took the stick from her, shaking his head. "Besides, they're best when you burn the outside." As soon as the Original's hand loosened enough for him to take control, he moved so the marshmallow was positioned directly in the flames. He kept it there despite her protests, shaking his head with a laugh. "Wait. It'll be delicious; I promise."

With a huff, she watched as he put out the flames and peeled the charcoal black outer layer of the sugary treat away to reveal the gooey, white center. "You don't have to be an ass about it." Taking the marshmallow from the stick, she put it in her mouth and widened her eyes with delight when the taste hit her tongue. "You have to teach me how to do that." Laughing, Damon reached into the plastic bag as he passed the primitive cooking tool back to the Original vampire seated beside him. As he was straightening up again, he felt the jagged, broken end of the stick dig into his abdomen. "You Salvatore boys are the same. When will you learn that you can't pull one over on me?"

*LIT*

He'd left for two minutes to go get another drink, and Lilith had already managed to completely disappear. Was it too much to ask for her to just stay put and wait for him to get back before she started investigating anything? With a sigh, Jeremy made his way through the crowd of people in search of his friend. If you'd asked him to classify their relationship just a few days before Klaus had ruined everything, he would have said they were boyfriend and girlfriend without hesitation. Even when she was gone, that's how he would have explained it. It was different seeing her as a vampire. He didn't care about her any less, and he'd protect her without even a moment's hesitation, but it was impossible to pretend that nothing had changed. He was seeing ghosts and she was eating people.

Just a regular weekend in Mystic Falls.

*LIT*

She was nothing more than a shadow as she watched Elena and Alaric get Stefan into the car, her thoughts drifting as she scanned their surroundings for any sign of Tyler or Rebekah or Klaus himself - anyone who could do anything to screw up their plan. It was wrong to wander off without telling Jeremy where she was going, and she knew that, but she was doing it so that he wouldn't be dragged into anything that could put him in danger. That counted for _something_, didn't it?

Besides, he didn't get to tell her what to do; she could take care of herself. It was hard to ignore that things were changing between them, and there was only so much they could do to try and get things back to the way they were. He'd changed - he was forced to deal with the fact that he'd never actually broken up with Vicki or Anna, that he had to let them go when he was still clinging to what he'd known before vampires were more than a myth. She had changed - she was different after her months with Klaus. She killed, and she hated that she couldn't even force herself to care.

Maybe she just needed some more time to adjust to being back in Mystic Falls, or she just needed to be able to process that her first kill was over a long time ago and it would probably never affect her. Maybe it should have affected her already, maybe it was never meant to. Maybe the realization would fall over her years in the future. No matter how much a small, seemingly insane part of her wanted to take a break from their relationship, she _needed_ him. She needed her humanity and he was what she had left of it. Transition had stolen the rest of it, and the fact that she'd barely felt _anything_ since she killed that little boy back in April was making her think it would never be returned to her.

The vampire paused mid-thought when the bitter heaviness of smoke announced its presence to her senses and she looked up, her eyes widening when she saw the bright flames engulfing Alaric's car. This definitely wasn't part of the plan.

*LIT*

A laugh erupted from the dhampir's lips when Stark leapt into Ziela's lap. "What happened to only being here for a few minutes?" She asked with a shake of her head. Jared had told her to wait in the car because he wouldn't be long, but he was still catching up with Tia and playing with his puppy. "I seem to remember something about lying being a sin."

The vampire rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he looked over at her. "Your mother taught you the difference between right and wrong? Does she even know what "right" means?" This wasn't the first time he'd provided commentary about her upbringing, and it was growing increasingly annoying.

He knew nothing of what her life was like before she met him, and he made inaccurate assumptions based on the Katherine Pierce he'd known. He had no right to question her mother's parenting or morals when he barely even knew her. Despite the questionable choices that their mother had made, Ziela thought that she and her sister had turned out just fine.

"Why do you hate my mother so much?" To Jared and Tia, the question seemed to come out of nowhere but, for Ziela's train of thought, it was right on track. "You've made comments like that since we've been here. Yeah, she's a bitch, but she was a good enough parent to keep Lilith and I alive for almost a century and a half before the supernatural beacon of Mystic Falls messed everything up." With a frown, she got to her feet and started for the door. "I'll be in the car."

*LIT*

Icy panic and adrenaline weren't enough to block out the overwhelming heat from the flames around her and her hands hurt from pulling desperately at the door handle.. The fire had come from nowhere and everywhere at once and Elena's panicked breathing was using up the remaining oxygen faster than she would have liked. The car was getting hotter and hotter with every passing second and she knew it was only a matter of time before the bright, flickering flames would reach the engine, and then it would all be over.

"Elena!" She could barely hear Alaric shouting through the window as he pulled uselessly at the door. His best option was to go and try to find Damon, but there was a good chance that the engine would blow before he could get close enough to the vampire to send a message. Glancing over, he noticed that, luckily, the rear door hadn't been closed completely. "Go back!" He shouted loud enough for the doppelganger to hear, running back to pull the door open just as she reached it, Stefan stumbling out of the car after her.

They were able to make it to the fence, a safe distance away, before the flames made it to the engine. The blast seemed to shake the ground as the unlimited oxygen in the air fed the flames and Elena stayed somewhat behind Stefan to hide away from the heat.

*LIT*

Smoke.

Jeremy was making his way toward Damon to tell him that Lilith had disappeared when the scent first hit his nose. It was different than the smoke coming from the piles of wood around him and had an almost metallic tang to it. "Where's Lilith?"

He spun at the sound of the vampire's voice. "She disappeared. I was just coming to find you." The human shook his head as he turned to look around for any sign of her, jumping at the distant sound of an explosion. "You heard that too, right?"

Damon took off without replying, hating that he couldn't be supernaturally fast with so many people around him. That explosion was too loud to be some drunken idiot with fire crackers and _anyone_ could have been close enough to be killed or seriously injured in the blast. It wasn't enough that he couldn't go any faster without attracting attention, his mind had to torture him with the worst possible scenarios. Ignoring the fact that Jeremy was trailing on his heels, he ran through the trees as soon as he knew no one was watching him, desperately longing to put an end to his tortuous thoughts.

Upon reaching the parking lot, he widened his eyes at the sight of Alaric's burning car and looked around for any sign of his friend. If Ric didn't know about the explosion already, he would know when he tried to go home, and then he would need a ride. Stepping forward, the vampire heard rustling from the leaves in a tree a few feet away from him, turning toward it curiously. He knew who it was when he saw her foot dangling a foot or two above his head. "I'm pretty sure we discussed that you're not allowed to sleep in a tree without my express permission."

Her sigh faded into the air as Lilith dropped to the ground, shaking her head with a frown. "I wasn't sleeping. I was trailing Ric and Elena to make sure nothing ruined the plan. On the negative side, we almost exploded. On the positive side, no one died." She nodded toward the fence where the smoke made it difficult to see the trio of people huddled there. "They're all alive and well, so don't start freaking out like I know you want to."

"Take Jeremy home." His voice was strangely calm as he nodded back toward the trees. "Stay at the Gilbert place tonight to make sure no one gets to Elena." With that, he jogged at a human pace around the burning car, his brotherly instincts driving him to help Stefan stay upright as he spoke quickly to Alaric.

She knew she should be trying to find Jeremy and getting him home, but it felt foreign to even think about staying there after being gone for so long. It was weirder still when she realized that she didn't _want_ to stay there. She'd much rather go back to how things had been during the summer. She wanted to spend her time annoying Rebekah and rolling her eyes at Stefan's excessive brooding and scold Klaus for his stupid, immature comments. She actually _missed_ his stupid, immature comments.

The sound of Jeremy's footsteps pulled her back to reality. Klaus's comments may have become endearing after a while, but that didn't change the fact that both he and Stefan had _lied_ to her for _months_ so that she wouldn't leave. Apparently, the thought never occurred to them that she might _choose_ to stay.

"What happened?"

Jeremy's voice pulled her from her thoughts again and she shook her head, walking past him as she tried to remember what exactly she was supposed to be doing. "You need to get home. I'm here to make sure you get there safely."

*LIT*

His phone rang in the seat next to him as he shook his head, turning the radio up to pointedly ignore yet another call from his sister. He'd left for a reason, and she was too self centered to see that. The phone rang again a few minutes later and he sighed, staring straight ahead at the road. If he was going to answer any of her calls, he would have done so by now. She needed to stop calling before he resorted to destroying his phone entirely. He wanted to get to Oregon as soon as possible, and it was getting increasingly difficult to keep his attention on the road with each ring of the phone.

"_What_, Rebekah?" He demanded as he held the phone to his ear. It wasn't enough that she had to call him the moment she'd realized he'd left her behind, but every thirty seconds after that until he finally answered.

"Where the bloody hell are you?" She sounded absolutely furious with him, just as she had when she'd woken up from having that damned dagger in her chest. Something Niklaus had learned over his thousand years was that his sister loved to be dramatic. Damn her. "You can't just leave me here, Nik. The Salvatores are planning something. You need to get back to town as soon as possible." With a roll of his eyes, Klaus hung up and tossed his phone back into the seat next to him, shaking his head. It wasn't his job to deal with the problems in Mystic Falls; it was Stefan's. If he wanted to help with Rebekah's problems, he wouldn't have left in the first place.

He'd needed to get away. From Mystic Falls, from Chicago, from anything that could remind him of her. The summer had been too good for him to forget, and he never wanted to forget it. The time he'd spent with her over those four months was different, and it made him different. He didn't have to worry about being judged, because she was almost as bad as he was. Their biggest difference was that she'd never lied to him, and that's all he'd done to her.

*LIT*

"You almost got barbequed, Elena, at least let me apply first aid."

Lilith glanced toward the stairs at the sound of her father's voice as she sat down beside Stefan on the couch. She couldn't stay with Jeremy. She wouldn't take his sympathy and pity and generosity and his kindness might just have killed her if she'd stayed any longer. It was too hard to pretend to be okay when everyone obviously knew she wasn't. Caroline's near constant judging certainly hadn't helped matters.

"Aren't you supposed to be with Jeremy?" She jumped at the unexpected sound of Stefan's words, staying silent when he continued. "I'm sure Damon would love to know how disobedient you're being."

His niece narrowed her eyes at him as she stood, shaking her head. "Kiss ass."

"You're a child."

With a roll of her eyes, Lilith stalked toward the stairs. "I love you, too, Uncle Stefan."

*LIT*

Frowning, Katherine dangled the dead mouse over the vampire in the coffin before her. She'd been trying all day to wake Mikael, and nothing was working - not grave diggers, not mourners, not corpses, not rats, not bats. It was infuriating. She leaned closer to investigate his unresponsive form, pulling the chains away that were binding his arms. His hands came up quickly to grab her and pull her down, his razor sharp fangs sinking into her neck.

**A/N**

**Everything I wanted to say was up there in the first note, so I'll just get right into this:**

**Me: *dagger-***

**Elijah: Do. Not. Even.**

**Me: **_**Someone **_**woke up on the wrong side of the coffin.**

**Elijah: TheDhampir doesn't own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Now, give me the dagger.**

**Me: No. I have questions.**

**Elijah: Too bad.**

**Me: But, Daddy Lijah-**

**Elijah: No. Undaggering me again is prohibidado.**

**Me: That's not even a word.**

**Elijah: Prohibado.**

**Me: It's "prohibido."**

**Elijah: Prohibimatato.**

**Me: Fine. Prohibidado. Got it.**

**Elijah: *gets daggered again***

**Me: Yeah, I'll see you in two chapters.**

**Don't forget to review! Pretty please with twenty cherries on top?**

**Peace In!**


	7. Ghost

_You look like you just saw a ghost,_  
_I caught you (caught you),_  
_Now I know._  
- Fefe Dobsen, _Ghost_

Nine hours, forty seven minutes, thirteen seconds. Nine hours, forty seven minutes, seventeen seconds. Nine hours, forty seven minutes, twenty two seconds. Nine hours, forty seven minutes, twenty six seconds. She'd been counting the seconds since she'd climbed into bed the night before, having intended to go to sleep and forget about all the stress that seemed to be ruling and controlling her life. She'd barely even closed her eyes.

The even breathing of the tree other vampires in the house seemed to rub in the fact that guilt was eating away at her so much, she was terrified to blink. She didn't want to mess up or step out of line and end up pushing someone away. She needed to get up and move and find a way to hold herself together while she was learning to adjust again.

With a sigh, she pushed herself out of bed at exactly ten hours, resigning to the fact that she wouldn't be getting any sleep. She stumbled toward her closet and scanned the hanging row of shirts and dresses and shorts and jeans and her lone jacket. It seemed stranger and stranger each morning to wake up in that bed, in this room, in this house, because it was no longer familiar. She felt like an intruder and she hated it.

Sinking to her knees and leaning against the closet door, she shook her head pitifully. She'd expected life in Mystic Falls to go back to normal, not for Caroline and her minion followers to cut her out completely. She felt like she was in a bad teen movie, like Lindsey Lohan's character in Mean Girls, and Caroline was her own personal Regina George. Despite what the blonde thought about Stefan, he'd been lying for four months, and there was no doubt that he would have kept lying if Jared hadn't come along and informed her of the truth. Everyone here had only seen the Stefan who ate bunnies and did everything he could to protect the people of Mystic Falls, not the Stefan who spent the summer draining the bodies of countless innocent people and lying to her face.

It wasn't fair that _she_ was being judged when she'd only done what she needed to do to survive while Stefan had all the choice in the world to not kill and torture, but he _chose_ to act as a ripper, to kill, to lie. He had no good reason to lie, except to stay on Klaus's good side. Even still, he could have filled her in and she would have willingly played along until she could make her escape. It wasn't _her_ fault that Stefan was drinking human blood, or that he'd started killing again. His choices and actions had caused all of this; everything he'd done had led up to this moment, and she hated it. She hated him for it. She was absolutely furious. He'd had so many opportunities to tell her the truth, to help her get home, but he'd only helped himself. His getting on Klaus's good side wouldn't help her at all, and Stefan had only done things to help Klaus and himself.

She didn't even realize that she was on her feet until she was pulling the door open and moving silently down the stairs to the living room. She was done sitting around and doing nothing when she could be distracting herself with the mindless task of cleaning. Moving around the room systematically, picking up the pillows that had been discarded near the couch and stubbornly rearranging the things on the small table.

"What are you doing?"

She spun quickly at the sound of Stefan's voice. It was his fault that she couldn't sleep or even close her eyes in this house anymore. She was opening her mouth to respond when a groan sounded from across the house. Sharing a brief look of confusion before making their way through the maze of doorways, they both paused when they finally tracked Damon down. "What the hell?"

He looked over at his brother with a shake of his head, his eyes narrowed threateningly. "Whatever kind of Ripper game this is, remove me from it before I get out of here on my own and drive a stake through your heart." Stefan rolled his eyes and stepped forward to break the chains enough for his brother to get out on his own before turning to push Lilith toward the door. "That's fine. I'll just untangle myself."

The front door closed and Stefan pushed his niece toward the sidewalk. "I'm enlisting you. Ric and Jeremy are meeting Elena for lunch in an hour, and I can't be anywhere near them. I don't need you to report back to me, but make sure you know where she is at all times." He didn't even giver her the chance to respond before he started down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. "Tell them I say hey."

*LIT*

It was exactly an hour later when she sat down across from Jeremy outside the Grill, tuning into the conversation at the sound of Alaric's annoyed voice. "Vicki could interact. She blew up my car." the sentence itself wasn't funny, not in the slightest, but it was _how_ he said it that made her laugh. "I'm so glad my misery brings you humor," he commented sarcastically.

She immediately felt horrible, getting to her feet with a shake of her head. "I actually should go. I'll see you later." She hated feeling like this, like everything she said was judged or analyzed, and she needed out. Before anyone could stop her or even speak up, she was halfway down the block. It wouldn't be enough to just sleep in a tree at the edge of town, or to take a long walk to clear her head. She needed _out_. She couldn't stay here much longer with the hatred coming off of Caroline in waves, the fact that no one trusted her judgment, every single word or action being judged or analyzed. Klaus and Stefan were the ones who had lied to her for months and showed no signs of stopping. Why did everyone refuse to see that?

*LIT*

Damon revved the engine to get Caroline and Bonnie's attention as he pulled up to the curb, a deep frown where his usual smirk should be. The girls knew that his mood would only worsen the longer he had to sit there and they walked over to prevent any further frustration. "Hey, Barbie, Witchy."

"What do you want, Damon?" The blonde's voice was nearly dripping with annoyance as she stepped up to the car, glaring down at him. "Come to pull us into another ridiculous plan that won't even work?"

"I'm being haunted," he said, ignoring her tone. "You messed something up last night, Bonnie, because Mason Lockwood's ghost spit roasted me and tied me to a chair." Neither of them spoke as he paused, shaking his head. "I don't appreciate the deja vu."

Bonnie's eyes widened in confusion and she shook her head. There was no way Mason's ghost had returned to haunt Mystic Falls; she'd been sending Vicki _away_. How had he managed to find his way between the worlds? How many others had done the same? "No. That's not possible."

"Fix it." The vampire bit back. He'd returned to Mystic Falls to torture Stefan - he _had_ promised him an eternity of misery, after all - and he'd stuck around for that and then to protect Elena. He definitely hadn't signed up for the ghost of a werewolf, who hadn't even been able to see through Katherine's charms, to torture him for two straight hours before he'd managed to get free. Not that he'd done almost just that to him. Before Bonnie or Caroline could respond or ask more questions, he was driving away, knowing his next stop would be the Grill to find Ric.

*LIT*

She'd spent the past hour just wandering around town, and had ended right back at the Grill as Elena headed in side. That was strange; hadn't she just eaten a little while ago? When Lilith followed the doppelganger inside, the first thing she noticed was that the main area of the restaurant was a bit more crowded than usual. There were people she didn't recognize that walked past her and barely gave her a second glance as she followed behind Elena at a close enough distance that the doppelganger knew she was being followed.

They stepped into the bathroom at the same moment and the scene they walked in on made them freeze.

"Jeremy?"

He pulled away from Anna quickly at the sound of his sister's voice, his gaze moving to Lilith as his lips curled down into a guilty frown. Her vision was blurry, and the lights seemed too bright. Everything hurt. There was a pounding in her head that she couldn't ignore, and the image of her best friend and someone she'd once considered her boyfriend wouldn't leave her head no matter how much she tried to shake it away. It wasn't like she hadn't been in a situation like this before; she _had_, and it felt just as bad every time. It always hurt, and didn't stop hurting until she put the entire relationship behind her and tried to move on.

Jeremy stepped forward and her eyes flickered to his lips - where Anna's had been practically glued only a few minutes before - and she acted on her decision before she'd even consciously made it. She bolted. Faces blurred past her as she moved toward the exit of the Grill, desperate for fresh air to clear her head and just to _escape_. She hadn't expected this to happen again, not with Ziela out of town for the foreseeable future. She hadn't been prepared, emotionally, for yet another big let down.

As crazy as it sounded, she almost wished she'd stayed with Stefan and Klaus. Yes, they'd lied to her for months, but at least they hadn't gone behind her back with the ghost of her best friend for who knows how long. She hated Klaus for lying for so long but, at that moment, she hated Jeremy more. She'd put genuine trust in him, not the blindly obedient form she'd had with Klaus, and he'd abused it.

The moment she felt fresh air in her lungs, he felt indescribably better. It only took a few seconds to clear her had, and with that single, stress free moment, she wanted nothing more than to be able to freely feed again, shunning all of Caroline's judgment and just letting go again. Even though she'd had virtually no control over anything in her life over the summer, it was still the most free she'd ever felt. She'd been taught to clean up her messes, and how to control herself if she really needed to; she'd been taught to behave as a true _vampire_.

Trying to act human again had been the mistake. Until she tried to get her old reality back, her life had been basically perfect. She'd gotten to travel and had been with people she'd, dare she even think it, cared about. When she'd tried to return to her old life, she'd been pushed into interacting with Caroline and her endless strings of judgment and assumptions.

Of course, in Caroline's mind, Lilith's opinion - that Stefan was in the wrong and she'd only been doing what was necessary to survive - didn't matter. Because it wasn't "right." Stefan was the patron saint of Mystic Falls in everyone else's minds, but she knew that he'd had less of a reason to go off and start killing, and she hadn't done anything nearly as horrible as tear her victims to pieces. At least she'd been clean about it...

_"You've got a bit of lunch right there, Love." Lilith didn't swat his hand away until his thumb brushed slowly across her lower lip, her eyes narrowing with annoyance. "I just wanted to help." Klaus shrugged with an almost victorious smirk, putting his thumb in his mouth to remove the few drops of blood he'd managed to collect there._

_The younger vampire rolled her eyes and brushed past him, leaving the bloodied girl discarded on the ground behind her. She knew Klaus would clean up her mess for her and she didn't feel like sticking around._

_When he grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him almost roughly, she let out a short gasp. "Where do you think you're going, Love?" His voice was quiet, and his lips brushed her ear with each word, but she wasn't as frightened as she knew she should be. She had no reason to be. He wasn't going to hurt her. "Stick around and I'll teach you how to clean up your own messes." He released her a few moments later and she stood perfectly still the places where his fingers pressed into her arm feeling numb._

_Lilith moved forward when he nodded for her to follow him, watching as he lifted the limp form of the girl into his arms and started for the door. This didn't__make sense; he'd never shown any interest in teaching her to fend for herself - not even when she'd asked him to. What was so different this time? She followed him obediently, not sure what to think when they finally stopped near a small grove of trees._

_"It can't look like she was anywhere but here," Klaus explained, letting the body fall to his feet. "Make it look as if she's been here a while." He knelt down as he continued, moving the leaves to make it seem as if they had blown into her victim's hair._

_The young vampire froze at the thought, shaking her head as she stepped back slowly. Maybe it was the fact that she'd never been near a body for so long before, or that she was seeing how each and every one of her victims were treated - discarded and hidden so that no one would discover the truth until it was too late - but for whatever reason, it felt wrong. This girl shouldn't be treated like garbage just because she'd been naïve enough to fall into a vampire's trap._

_"Stop!" She stumbled forward and pulled to hybrid to his feet, pushing him back away from the poor girl's body. It was more than a little obvious that he was letting her push him around, but she didn't care; she just wanted to guilt to stop. The single emotion was consuming her, eating away at her from the inside out, and it was tortuous. Neither of them knew when it happened, but at some point, she stopped pushing him away. Her fingers clutched desperately at his shirt and his arms wound around her to pull her closer._

_Maybe it was how close he was, or how comforting his fingers felt when they moved through her hair, but she was slowly beginning to relax. It wasn't until he lifted her into his arms a short while later that she allowed herself to completely relax. It was strange how just being close to him made her feel safer, like the things outside of their bubble didn't matter. Being so close to him made everything disappear - enough that she didn't realize he was even moving until she hear Stefan's voice._

_"What happened?"_

_He sounded worried, but she couldn't bring herself to care, keeping her eyes closed until she knew he was gone. When she felt soft sheets beneath her, she let her eyes close again, taking__in the foreign comforts of the bed. She felt his fingers brush across her cheek when he tucked her hair behind her ear, relaxing further as he pulled the blankets up to her shoulders. "Rest, Love..." His lips ghosted over her forehead just before the light was flicked off, leaving her to her dreams..._

She stepped into the Salvatore Boarding House, trying to banish all thoughts of Jeremy and Anna and Klaus and lips from her mind. She had to move on, to forget about what had happened and let it go. Holding on to the horrible experiences and memories wouldn't help her later on, only drag her down. Letting go was the best option.

Jeremy who?

*LIT*

The small, OCD part of Damon Salvatore was gathering the pieces of the shattered glass into a pile; the rest of him was more than a little pissed. Leave it to Mason Lockwood to come along at the most inconvenient time possible and make a mess of things - literally. So, he wanted an apology. Someone should wish him good luck with that.

"Good luck with that." Alaric Saltzman. Right on cue.

He definitely wasn't going to apologize to Mason; he hadn't earned on. If he'd done anything that merited he deserved an apology, it would still be a maybe. He owed Mason nothing. "Sometimes, I do things I don't have to do." There. That's all he was getting.

The ghostly werewolf let out a short laugh, shaking his head and leaning against the bar counter top. His thoughts were clear in his face - an amused smile pulling the corners of his lips upward, his eyes twinkling with something akin to delight. Had Damon really thought that would be enough? "Close enough." Mason knew the vampire well enough to know that that was all he was gonna get.

*LIT*

Elena left the bathroom with a huff, scanning the people at the tables for any sign of Lilith. She'd known she was being followed, and she never would have led her into the bathroom if she'd known what was going on. Once Damon found out, Jeremy would be a dead man in an instant - and with her mood right now, Elena would gladly help.

The last time Lilith had run off like this, she'd ended up going missing for four months, trapped with Klaus and Stefan and forced into situations that no one should ever have to go through. If Jeremy had pushed her into another position like that, so help him...

Her thoughts were interrupted when Lexi appeared in front of her and the doppelganger jumped with surprise. "You chose a good day to be thinking about me, Elena."

*LIT*

Damon crossed his arms triumphantly, dropping the shovel to the ground and turning to Mason beside him with a slight smirk. The hole stared gapingly at them from a few feet away and the werewolf shook his head. Sometimes, the Salvatore's impatience was useful. "You go first." The vampire's smile had faded as they stood there, a suspicious frown replacing it moments later. "That way I'll know it's not a trap." He nodded decisively and waved his hand toward the opening in the old, crumbled brick, his small smile returning as he followed the ghost inside.

*LIT*

"What am I supposed to say, Ziela?"

"Apologize! I got that you don't like my mom - _no one_ likes my mom - but you don't have to go around advertising how much of a bitch she is!"

They'd barely made it out of Denver before the arguing had started, and Jared didn't know how much more of it he could take. Before he could shot back, the dhampir beside him continued. She'd sat through one of his speeches and taken it to heart, so now it was his turn.

"Yes, my mother has made questionable choices. Yes, she's a bitch. Yes, she's a bad parent. She's been running for over five hundred years because she doesn't want to die - and she somehow raised both me and my sister and we miraculously turned out just fine. She's a bitch and makes dishonorable decision and she makes mistakes, but no one is perfect. Not even you, Jared Petrova, no matter how perfect and wise you pretend to be."

Silence filled the car for along moment - him not wanted to spark another argument and her not wanting to inspire a speech of his own.

"Look, Z, I-"

"Save it."

*LIT*

A low groan fell from his lips when the vervained vampire opened his eyes, the dim light of the old jail cell seeming to make his headache worse. Out. The single syllable echoed through his head, the desperate need to escape resonating into his thoughts until everything else seemed like gibberish.

"Stefan."

The word wasn't a question, but just the sound brought everything into harsh focus. Even with the low light, he could make out every bump and crack in the stone, every smooth break in the floor. He'd never once been in this room before, but he knew exactly where he was based on his father's description. The vampire cell. It wasn't really a surprise to him that he'd been locked up - Damon was bound to resort to it at tome point - but he was surprised to see that his brother wasn't ever present. Instead, there was Elena, who was to be expected, and someone he'd thought he'd never see again.

Lexi.

It had been her voice that had pulled him from his thoughts before, and it was her hand on his arm when he blinked to dull the ache in his head and his limbs. "I used just enough force to bring him down - no vervain." When she spoke again, it wasn't to him. "You see, Elena, these ripper binges last a few decades at a time, and your life isn't quite that long - hence our dilemma. Luckily for us, I have to ability to give you a crash course."

The hungry ache in his throat grew almost infinitely worse the moment the words left her lips, and he watched his vampire friend circle his chair slowly. "This is ten months without blood." Her voice was cold and harsh as she watched him suffer and Elena's body spasmed in an impossible to hide flinch. "Eighteen months." the chains binding him to the chair felt heavier on his wrists, the slightest shift of the metal making them scrape against his skin. "Three years." His veins felt dry, and there wasn't even enough blood in them to flood under his eyes with hunger.

"I love you, Elena," Stefan practically pleaded, widening his eyes for emphasis. "I'm sorry. I won't hurt anyone again. I love you."

The blonde vampire still pacing around him scoffed and shook her head. She knew exactly what he was doing - appealing to Elena's humanity and emotion so she would let him free - but there was _no way_ that would happen if she had any say in the matter. "He'll say anything for you to let him out, but you can't listen to him if you want this to work." Lexi kept her voice as casual and nonchalant as possible, but she hated seeing him like this. "Five years." She moved on quickly, pushing the image of pain in his eyes out of her thoughts as quickly as possible. This would be much harder if she let herself get involved

"I'm sorry, Stefan." The doppelganger's voice was practically a whimper as she shook her head, obviously struggling to hold back tears at the sight of the younger Salvatore brother in so much pain.

He erupted with anger when they didn't cooperate with his poor veiled manipulation, pulling uselessly at the binding chains around his arms and wrists. "I hate you. I wish I'd never even met you." His voice held a venom that neither of the girls were expecting and Lexi barely managed to hold back a flinch at his tone. "You've ruined everything!"

"Ten years." She had to keep pushing him or he'd never recover from his latest binge. "Push your emotions away, Elena - don't let him play on them." Her blonde hair flew up behind her as she sped over, tightening the chains on her closest friend's arms. "You have to get him weak enough and then apply pain."

At that moment, she dug her nails into Stefan's arm, silently reminding him that he could still feel physical pain even if he'd shut out the emotional forms of it.

*LIT*

Caroline searched impatiently through the big bedroom, pulling open drawers and pulling things out to look through every nook and cranny. When she was sure the necklace wasn't anywhere in there, she moved toward the connected bathroom, pulling open drawers with vampire speed and strength, huffing with annoyed irritation when she pulled the various soaps from the dish. "The necklace isn't anywhere in this room," she complained into the phone in her hand, crossing her free arm over her chest.

"Damon isn't answering his phone," Bonnie's voice informed her, more than a little frazzled. "I'll try to reach Elena."

The vampire sighed and put her phone back in her pocket, jumping with surprise at the sight of Lilith in the doorway. She reeked of alcohol - bourbon, whiskey, scotch - and she was barely staying on her feet with intoxication. "That's not even Elena's necklace. It's Rebekah's."

With a frown, Caroline shook her head and pushed her out of the bedroom. "You're drunk; go to bed. I'm not going to deal with you while you're like this."

Lilith let out a laugh, feigning astonishment at the blonde's words and shaking her head. _Like this_? Caroline had wanted nothing to do with her since she'd gotten back. Why would her being hung over and miserable make things any different? "You're kind of a bitch." She didn't even pause, too drunk to watch her mouth. "You're nice enough, especially to Stefan, but if someone does something you don't like, even if they're just doing it to survive, you are a complete and total bitch. It's almost funny because you're being a hypocrite the entire time." She laughed again, ignoring the look of pure anger on Caroline's face as she turned to brush past her. "You hate me because I've killed people, but so have you. It was your choice - albeit, you were a newbie vampire with no control - but I didn't have the luxury of stopping because I had a ripper and a hybrid breathing down my back. I may have been with Klaus and Stefan for months, but it certainly wasn't by choice."

*LIT*

The pain in his stomach was dull but it didn't go away. It was almost as if the four wooden spikes were wtill drilling into his flesh. If the ghostly pain was just a few inches higher, he would have thought he'd been staked.

"I told you to go left."

Speaking of ghosts.

"But I went right, and I found a vampire trap - meaning we're going the right way." For once, his lack of trust had helped them, but Ghostly Lockwood was still insisting that he should have gone the other way. He'd even said he wasn't all-knowing when Damon had made his smartass comment of the hour.

"Thank goodness you don't have the ability to trust anyone." They'd been travelling side by side for almost ten minutes when the vampire suddenly stopped, leaving mason to continue into a larger area alone. "Aren't you coming? We don't have forever."

A frown pulled the corners of the Salvatore's mouth downward and he shook his head. "I can't. It's like I haven't been invited in." He tried uselessly to push past the invisible barrier, shaking his head again and speaking firmly when he looked back up at his arch nemesis. "Wait."

"No. I'm not waiting for you when I don't know how much time we have." The werewolf shook his own head, offering Damon a shrug. "I guess you're gonna have to trust me."

*LIT*

The chains rattled as Stefan pulled at them, trying desperately for freedom and the blood he could hear rushing through Elena's veins. He knew he shouldn't feel like this, and he knew that it was wrong, but he couldn't bring himself to care. All he could hear was her heartbeat; all he could smell was the delicious, forbidden nectar of her blood; all he wanted was to drain her completely.

In his head, that's exactly what he did.

_She struggled in his arms, and fear made her heart pound in her chest, the sound echoing in his thoughts and driving him to feed. His predatory fangs slowly drew a burning path down the side of her neck and her flinch caused a single drop of warm, welcoming blood to well up on her skin. The taste his tongue an instant later - metallic copper warmed to just the right temperature, the essence of her life that was already beginning to fade, and the slightest hint of fear to make it perfect._

_He bit into her flesh moments later, more of the beautifully satisfying life coating his tongue, staining his lips and her skin with its brightly contrasting red. When it dried, it would be an almost sickly brown color, cracked and raw, unappealing and ugly and seen as nothing more than garbage. But now, it drove him crazy - crazy for more, for the supply to never end, for her to die so he could absorb so much more power to thrive upon._

_Her body went limp in his arms when he pulled back, fresh blood dripping from his chin and drying slowly in her long, chocolate hair. Her eyes were empty - the life and soul and spirit ripped away from her without any warning. "Stefan..." Elena's dead lips didn't move, but her voice was enough to pull him out of his fantasy..._

"You should be dead." His voice was a low growl, his entire body shaking with fury and anger at having the paradise he'd created in his head torn away from him so quickly. She made his life hell, and she deserved to suffer for it. "I wish you were dead. I wish I'd never met you."

The doppelganger in front of him flinched at his tone, shaking her head apologetically. "He's trying to push your buttons." How could Lexi be so calm about this? He wasn't being manipulative; he was stating _fact_. Elena was a cold hearted bitch. "Don't let him see that his words are affecting you. Don't let them affect you. the colder and harder you are, the sooner he'll give up and give in."

*LIT*

"I get that Jeremy's been an ass, but that doesn't give her the right to be a bitch."

Bonnie resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Caroline's endless complaints, shaking her head as she looked over at one of her closest and oldest friends. "Her boyfriend just made out with the ghost of her best friend. Adjusting has been hard enough on her to begin with."

"She's not adjusting; she's bitching." The vampire crossed her arms as she stared out the window, her voice mocking. "Oh no, being a vampire is so hard. Oh no, I killed someone. Oh no, no one likes me and my boyfriend kissed a ghost. Can you believe her?"

The witch beside her shook her head. "No, Caroline, I can't believe her." Caroline smiled in victory at the idea of Bonnie being on her side, the smile quickly fading when her friend continued. "I can't believe she went through four months of pain and grief and guilt and lies and someone managed to not completely fall apart. I can't believe she puts up with you as much as she does just so she can protect Elena so Damon doesn't have to worry. I can't believe Jeremy betrayed her trust and the worst thing she's done tonight is rant at you for excluding her form every little thing because of circumstances beyond her control."

Silence filled the small space after that, and when the blonde vampire finally responded, her friend didn't hesitate to do just as she instructed.

"Pull over. I'll walk."

*LIT*

Hours of silence made both of the people in the car uncomfortable, the static of the radio only making the entire situation seem worse. They didn't even dare to look at each other, too worried that another argument would start and bring on world war three. On the bright side, no talking meant no insults or jibes to anyone's upbringing or personal image - no matter how horrible either happened to be.

They were two hours into Kansas when Jared turned off the radio to eliminate the static. He was quiet when he spoke, knowing that Ziela could go off on him again if she wanted to. "I really am sorry about what I said." He waited silently for her to respond, continuing hesitantly when he didn't. "You aren't anything like your mother, and I never should have said those things either. My experiences with your mom are much different than yours. I was on a job when I met her. Niklaus hired me to find her so he could make her suffer for killing herself and turning. He made her sound like a demon, the way he talked about her, so that's how I saw her.

"And then I met her, and I found out that everything he said about her was a lie. You were talking about Klaus and I thought of everything he told me. But, as soon as I saw her again, my memories of her came back, and I never told him about her because I wanted to protect her. I never told her he sent me because I wanted her to trust me." He stopped, looking over at the dhampir beside him with a shake of his head. "I'm sorry. I'm boring you, aren't I?"

Ziela shook her head, taking a long moment to gather her thoughts. "What I'm getting from this is that you like my mom. Am I right?"

Jared shook his head, coughing back an amused laugh. Of course she'd be absorbed in the romance of it all. After a short moment of hesitation, he nodded, a small smile pulling at his lips. "Yeah, Z, I like your mom."

*LIT*

"I found something."

Damon stood up straighter at the sound of Mason's voice, leaning against the stone wall to listen to what the ghost had to say. "What is it? What's in there?"

"It's-" Before he could continue, he paused, frowning in confusion.

"Mason?" The vampire frowned at empty air, trying to lean in to see where he'd disappeared to. "No... Mason!"

*LIT*

She closed the heavy, metal door shortly after Lexi had disappeared, staring through the bars at Stefan with a deep brown. Elena had tried everything to get her old Stefan back, but nothing had changed - if anything, her efforts had only made things worse. Lexi had told her that it would take decades to get him back, but was it wrong to wish that what she'd done had at least produced some progress?

All she could do now was wait.

*LIT*

"Why did you call me of all people to help you?"

Alaric sat down beside Damon on the stone steps, shaking his head in confusion. The vampire had killed him multiple times and then ditched him for the ghost of Mason Lockwood to track down and resurrect Imhotep and awake the mummy's curse... or something. Why would he want his help?

"Because I need a human to get into the cave, and besides Elena, you're the only human I trust." The look on the history teacher's face only served to reiterate his theory that he would have to say more than that to get his help. "Look, about killing you, sometimes I do things I don't have to do."

"You're really gonna recycle that same half assed apology you used on Mason Lockwood?"

"Yeah, well, I didn't mean it with him."

*LIT*

When he walked through the front door of the boarding house hours later, the first and only thing Damon smelled was alcohol. Empty bottles were strewn around the living room. His first thought was that Stefan was going to have a very large splinter in his chest, and then he saw the familiar dark head of his daughter resting on the arm of the couch.

"Jeremy's an ass..."

He didn't bother asking what she meant as she pulled a blanket tightly around herself, simply setting to work on cleaning up the glass and bottles from the floor.

**A/N**

**Two chapters in one night! You're welcome!**

**Me: Hi.**

**Damon: Hi…**

**Me: How are you?**

**Damon: Confused.**

**Me: *passes him a script***

**Damon: "TheDhampir doesn't own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form."**

**Me: Thank you.**

**Damon: …**

**Me: …**

**Damon: …**

**Me: Would you like to be paid in gum?**

**Damon: Yes, please.**


	8. It's Just A Break-Up

_Powder your nose, paint your toes,_  
_Line your lips and keep '__em__ closed,_  
_Cross your legs; dot your I's,_  
_And never let '__em__ see you cry..._  
-Miranda Lambert, _Mama's Broken Heart_

Her head was pounding, and everything was blurry. She was beginning to make out the fire flickering in the stone fireplace when ice connected with glass right by her ear. Diving deeper under the blanket, Lilith shook her head with a groan. "Too loud."

"That'll teach you to ingest my entire bourbon supply." The couch moved when Damon sat down, pulling the blanket back enough so that he could see her face. "It's time to get up. You're lucky I let you sleep this long."

She tried to pull the blanket back up when the bright light of the sun shone on her face, another groan tumbling from her lips. "No. It's too bright." She sent him a short glare at the sound of his amused chuckle, shaking her head. "It's not funny."

It was a mystery as to why he suddenly found her misery humorous, but she was in too much pain to care. She had been stupid to drink so much, and now she was paying for it with a monster hangover. The pounding in her head seemed to only get worse as time passed, even though her supernatural recovery should have kicked in the night before.

"Hopefully, this hangover will turn you off from alcohol for the rest of your existence." With a short nod, Damon got to his feet again. "If you're not up in five minute, I'm using an air horn to make your headache worse."

*LIT*

Elena watched her brother across the table as he ate, not touching her own cereal or acknowledging Alaric moving through the kitchen behind her. "How was your night, Jeremy?" She fought to keep her voice even, not wanting to alert their pseudo guardian to their conflict. Was she still upset with her brother? Yes. Was she disappointed in him? Definitely. She'd known life had been hard, especially recently, but she'd never pegged him as a cheater.

"It was okay."

If Jeremy noticed his sister's intense gaze, he didn't show it. What was the point? She was going to give him a disapproving speech later either way. Besides, the less Alaric knew about the entire situation, the less likely it was Damon would find out.

The teacher chose that moment to speak up, sitting down on Jeremy's right. "I had an interesting conversation with Damon last night." A single glance only confirmed the young Gilbert's suspicions and he dropped his spoon into his bowl with a defeated sigh. "Apparently, you're paying to replace all the alcohol that Lilith consumed. He has also requested to know why she called you an ass."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jeremy saw his sister try to stifle a short laugh, frowning as he shook his head. "What's so funny, 'Lena? Thinking about how similar our situations are? I mean, you're still technically dating Stefan, but you've been spending a _lot_ of time worrying about Damon this summer." He shrugged as a sly smirk tugged at his lips.

"At least I didn't make out with Stefan's best friend in a bathroom."

Everyone fell silent after that, the Gilbert siblings locked in an intense stare down. He _would_ play that card, which meant she had to be just as harsh. Lilith wasn't here, so the doppelganger was going to go to war for her.

"Okay, well I'm gonna go to work." Ric slowly got to his feet with a confused frown, shaking his head as he made his way toward the door. "I'll see you in class."

Jeremy and Elena were silent even after his car drove away, not saying a word to each other as they finished their breakfast.

*LIT*

"Why are we stopping?"

"I don't know, Ziela, maybe because I just drove all night and I'm tired." Jared shook his head as he pulled the car into a parking spot. He was exhausted, and all he wanted to do was sleep.

The dhampir in the seat next to him shifted uneasily when she saw the sign reading _pay by the hour_. "Can we stay somewhere else?"

"_Really_?" He frowned as he shook his head, turning off the car. "I know it's not a five-star resort, but-"

"It's _pay by the hour_, Jared." Ziela shook her head, reaching over to turn the key again. "This is where men take their whores or one night stands. I'm not staying here, and not because of how filthy the rooms are."

With a frown, the vampire shook his head. He didn't doubt his niece, but he was sure the filth of the rooms had something to do with how much she wanted to go somewhere else. She could easily protect herself if she needed to; there wasn't any real reason to go anywhere else. "Ziela-"

"I'm _not_ staying here." The frown on her face remained firm as she shook her head. Yes, she could defend herself against anything if she needed to - except maybe a full vampire or a werewolf during a full moon - but that didn't mean she wanted to sleep with one eye open until they reached Mystic Falls. "You can either keep driving, or I won't be getting any sleep and I'll keep you awake with me."

He sighed and rolled his eyes at her threat, shaking his head as he backed the car out of the parking space. "Fine. We're stopping for coffee first so I don't pass out. Deal?"

Ziela nodded and turned to stare out the window as he drove. "Deal."

*LIT*

"Damon wants you awake." She opened her eyes slowly at the sound of Rebekah's voice, groaning in protest and moving to cover her head with the pillow. "Before I leave would be preferred, Salvatore."

Lilith frowned when the Original pulled the pillow away and started folding the blanket. "I don't wanna get up..." She tried to curl closer to the couch, shrieking with surprise when the floor seemed to materialize beneath her, the pounding in her head momentarily forgotten. "What the hell?"

"Tell Damon I got you up. I'll be at practice." Before the younger vampire could say anything else, the front door slammed shut behind the retreating blonde figure.

*LIT*

The sound of the metal door opening pulled Stefan from his exhausted sleep and he opened his eyes just as Damon was closing it again. "I get an early morning visit, brother? My, my, my, I must be special. Then again, maybe I should just be glad you don't want to murder me for killing your daughter."

His brother rolled his eyes as he walked over, lounging idly against the wall. "I can guarantee Lilith is madder at Jeremy, based on the fact that she called him an ass before passing out last night."

There was a short pause before Stefan turned his head with a slight frown of confusion. "I don't know what that means."

"No one knows what that means." Damon shook his head and stepped forward to stand in front of his brother. "Besides, how can we kill the killers and call it righteous?" he quoted with a shrug. Being mad at Stefan wouldn't get anything done, and killing him would only invoke Elena's wrath. "Pardon my John Grogan quote, but I only watched Marley and Me with your girlfriend about a hundred times this summer while you were out killing more of your family members."

The other vampire's cold laugh almost made him shiver. It was sick how quickly his brother could go from being goody-goody two shoes with the strangely intense need to keep such a strong grip on his humanity to the Ripper who couldn't care less about human life if he tried. "Don't try to play for my emotions, brother. They're not there for you to find anymore." Coming from Stefan, the words seemed more definite - final.

At least all the other times he'd let the Ripper in him take over, Stefan was still there somewhere, but now, he himself had lost all hope for ever being himself again. "Well, not with that attitude." Back to the endless pattern of jokes and misery.

Jokes were nothing more than a mask, something to help Damon pretend that everything wasn't completely falling apart around him. His brother was a monster; his daughter was dead - more or less; he couldn't call Alaric or Elena to get any updates because they had no service in the tunnels. If no one else had any hope, how was he supposed to? "Are you really so far gone that you won't even let me try to help you?"

"Elena and I are over, you know." The younger Salvatore tried to shrug, changing the subject quickly. "You could sweep in, finally get the girl. Unless, of course, you think you'd be one of those many doomed relationships. I mean, you _are_ a fatalist."

Damon said nothing for a long moment before walking around to pull at the chains and free his brother from the chair. He'd get into a world of trouble when Elena found out, but she _had_ put him in charge of Stefan for the day, and she never once told him he couldn't take a day trip.

*LIT*

Elijah. Rebekah. Niklaus. Mikael. Four names, somehow all connected. Elijah, Rebekah and Klaus were siblings, but how was Mikael involved? Klaus seemed too afraid of him to be another Original sibling, and Elijah had been afraid of _Klaus_. If Elijah was the Easter Bunny compared to Klaus, then what kind of hell would Mikael cause?

"Damon likes to call him Papa Original." Alaric's voice brought Elena out of her thoughts and she turned to face him, jumping with surprise in the otherwise silent cavern. "These drawings tell a story, maybe why Mikael hates them so much." He turned to face the human doppelganger, shaking his head. "I have pictures of most of them back at my apartment that I'm working on decoding. I'll call you if I find anything new."

"And I'll work on getting Rebekah on our side until then," she stated with a nod. "If we can get information from her, we can use it against Klaus." Elena raised a hand in a wave of farewell, heading for the tunnels that would lead her outside.

*LIT*

"Where are you?"

Damon frowned when he heard his favorite doppelganger's voice through the phone, resisting the urge to sigh. Of course, he knew Elena would find out about the road trip he was taking his brother on; he just hadn't expected her to call when she found out. "I don't know where we are, but I'm pretty sure I'm overdressed."

"_We_?"

Okay, so maybe she didn't know that he'd brought Stefan along. That didn't necessarily mean he couldn't get out of her yelling at him later. "Stefan said to tell you hey." It was official: plan A was to die before she could get to him.

"You let Stefan out?" Her words sounded more like a statement than a question to him and he could hear her hair brushing against her cheek through the phone. "What if he kills someone, Damon?"

He let his pent up sigh escape, shaking his head and watching his brother walk toward the bar. "I won't let him kill anyone." If she thought that he was just going to stand by and let Stefan commit mass murder, she needed to reassess the entire situation. He's put _Rebekah_ in charge of the house and his miserable, hung-over daughter so that he could help Stefan practice control. There was no way he was going to let the opportunity go to waste. "I have some of Ric's vervain darts in the car if I need them. Stefan won't be killing anyone today."

Damon hung up before she could question him and his actions further, sighing with something close to defeat. Why was it so hard to just let him deal with his brother while she dealt with the happenings in Mystic Falls? Handling Stefan was almost too easy, even with his emotions off.

This would be cake.

*LIT*

"I thought I'd made it perfectly clear that you're supposed to be _up_?"

"You only said to get off the couch." Lilith shook her head as she tried to crawl deeper under the blankets. It wasn't that she was still hung-over, because she _wasn't_; she was just plain miserable. Her boyfriend cheated on her. How was she supposed to react? Yes, she could act, but pretending didn't make problems go away.

Pretending she hadn't killed hundreds of people couldn't bring them back; pretending that Klaus hadn't lied to her for months didn't make his words the truth; pretending Jeremy kissing Anna didn't hurt only made it hurt more.

And pretending Rebekah wasn't there wouldn't make her go away. "I have people coming over, so you'd better be up and at least somewhat hospitable or gone."

The slamming of the bedroom door made the young vampire sit up, a groan of complaint falling from her lips. Why couldn't she just stay in bed and out of the way? Did people really expect her to just put herself together and move on so quickly? Surely, they'd had their own hearts broken over the years. Then again, maybe it was just her. Maybe it was only her who even remotely cared about love and happiness and _not_ spending the rest of her existence alone.

With a sigh of defeat, she got out of bed and walked slowly down the stairs. Before she could even announce her presence, a certain blonde Original was pushing a bundle of blue material into her arms. "Go change. I need your help with something."

"So I have to get dressed?" Rebekah disappeared before providing an answer and the Salvatore turned to go back up the stairs, pausing at the sight of Elena out of the corner of her eye. She hadn't expected the doppelganger to show up here for whatever activity the Original was planning. "My dad isn't here," the vampire said as Elena approached her, shaking her head. "He left early this morning."

"I'm not here to see your dad." For whatever reason, her answer didn't surprise the young vampire at the base of the stairs. She almost expected the answer, for Elena to, for once, not be looking for the same person as always. "I'm here to see Rebekah."

Well, it certainly wouldn't be the first time she could add a suicide attempt to her résumé.

She should stop her, or at least call her father so he could talk some sense into the insane doppelganger he was supposedly in love with, but she didn't care. Lilith could stand there and look at Elena and _know_ that she was walking into a death trap, but she didn't care. Images of Jeremy and Anna crossed her mind, and it didn't hurt. Klaus's lies no longer mattered; _he_ no longer mattered.

All of her emotions were gone and, for one of the first times in her existence, she felt _free_. The young vampire had to keep herself from scoffing at the thought. It was hard to feel free when she couldn't feel anything at all.

"Have fun with your cheerleader."

Before Elena could react to her strangely detached tone, she dashed back up the stairs. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, she let her lips pull into a wide, almost victorious smile. It was so _freeing_ to be emotionless. People could go around doing anything and she wouldn't care; _she_ could go around doing anything and she wouldn't care. Killing people wouldn't hurt anymore; betrayals wouldn't hurt anymore; no one could hurt her anymore.

She looked down at the silky blue material in her hands with the same eerie smile, the expression conveying not even a single ounce of emotion as she locked the door. If Rebekah wanted her to change, she'd change.

*LIT*

It seemed like he'd been driving for hours before Ziela finally shut up and fell asleep, and the caffeine from Jared's coffee was wearing off quickly. If it weren't for the fact that he'd have to wake his cranky niece, he would have stopped at the nearest hotel.

His sanity was more important.

Ziela was bad enough just when she was tired; he could only imagine what would happen if he were to wake her up. So the vampire decided to just let the hum of the engine keep him awake.

Somehow, the radio had ended up on a country music station - maybe because it was the only station they still got out in the middle of Nowhere, Missouri. Of course, with his niece asleep, he'd ended up on some strange back roads instead of the interstate. Maybe he was a bit directionally challenged, but that didn't mean he needed any help getting anywhere.

Okay, so maybe he was a little lost.

Considering his living was made tracking people down with a magic compass, you'd think he'd be better at finding his way around. Then again, most of his jobs had been in Europe and didn't involve the confusing array of interstate highways that Ziela had no problem navigating. With a short groan of something like defeat, he reached over to shake the dhampir's arm. "Ziela... Wake up... I'm lost..."

Moments later, he felt her judging gaze. She'd only lived around interstates for a century and a half, so why wouldn't she think him stupid for getting lost? "You're _lost_?" Jared said nothing, preparing for the speech he knew was coming. "Don't you spend your time traveling the world? How the hell did you get lost?"

"I spend my time following a magical compass around Europe. I very rarely visit the Americas." He frowned, shaking his head. "The last time I was anywhere near here was Mystic Falls in 1830-something to look into someone for Elijah."

The dhampir rolled her eyes and pointed toward the next turn, her eyes following the pavement. "Turn there. The first left will be an on-ramp to interstate-70."

*LIT*

The continuous ringing of the phone had gotten more and more annoying as time passed, and the fact that he wasn't answering only made whoever it was call again and again. Apparently, Rebekah couldn't take a hint. When he finally got fed up with the noise and answered it, it was a very different feminine voice than he was expecting.

"I'm so glad you finally answered, Niklaus."

"Amelia." His voice was a low growl as he drove, an almost cold smile twisting across his features. "How is my favorite witch? I hope you aren't too bored in the rainy, dreary northwest."

She replied easily, not even taking a beat in fear. "There are werewolves here. I thought you might be interested in experimenting with them. The entire pack is in Portland."

It was him who paused, unconsciously changing his route to drive westward. "I'll be there in a few hours, Love. Get one of them alone."

*LIT*

Both Elena and Rebekah looked up when they heard the clicking of heels against the hardwood stairs, the Original letting a pleased smirk pull at the corners of her mouth. The light blue material hung down to Lilith's knees, hugging every curve of her body until it fell away at her hips. "Homecoming is this weekend," the human said in an effort to be supportive, contradicting the disappointed shake of her head. "You should wear that."

Her tone was half hearted, insincere. She didn't mean a word she said and did little to hide it. There was something different about the young vampire on the stairs; something had changed since their conversation less than an hour before. The glazed look of absolute, unadulterated misery in her eyes had disappeared and been replaced with an almost predatory gleam. What had changed in the short time she'd been upstairs?

The vampire's emotionless gaze moved over her and she took a step back, the complete and utter emptiness in the usually animated blue hues causing goose bumps to appear on her arms. Just the fact that she'd turned her emotions off seemed to make the room that much colder, and Rebekah couldn't be more pleased.

"It's about time you flipped your humanity switch. You were a bore." The blonde moved forward with inhuman speed, lifting Lilith's hair into a messy updo. "Perfect. I can do it like this for the dance."

Elena followed them up the stairs, too worried about what they'd do if she left them alone. An emotionless vampire and an Original in the same room, alone, could only be a recipe for disaster.

*LIT*

He's spoken too soon.

Handling Stefan had turned out to be the exact opposite of cake.

The hardest part hadn't been keeping him from killing people, or keeping him from feeding, or even keeping him away from the alcohol. It was keeping him in one place. Despite the fact that there was no such thing as a fun Stefan, he seemed to be having plenty of fun going from girl to girl throughout the bar and using his strengthening compulsion to make them agreeable.

How had it turned out that he was the boring, responsible one while his buzz kill little brother was most likely going to get laid in a few hours?

Damon sighed as he sat down at a nearby table, lifting his glass of bourbon to his lips. With each passing hour, he needed the alcohol more and more – especially if Stefan kept moving around like this. Every time his brother found a new girl to toy with for a few minutes, he was stuck cleaning up the mess from the last one.

"Ah, the Salvatore boys; how nice to finally meet you."

The both of them turned quickly at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, Damon's glass hitting the floor and shattering loudly. Mikael. Stefan had ended up directly beside his brother, their shoulders inches apart as if they were protecting the bar of people behind them.

"I hear you're looking for a way to end Niklaus."

*LIT*

"It took you long enough." The girl's blonde hair blew in the breeze as she watched the hybrid step out of the car. "We've had them rounded up since you called."

"_Them_?" Klaus questioned the witched in front of him with an arched brow. "I only requested one."

Her lips curved into an almost wicked smile as she stepped forward, putting a hand on his shoulder and letting it slowly descend across his chest as she spoke. "Just call me an overachiever."

He leaned in to capture her lips in a kiss as his own curled up in a mirrored smile, his arm winding around her thin waist to pull her body against his. With his eyes closed the way they were, he could very easily imagine a different tongue moving with his, the image in his head depicting a girl with much darker hair pushing herself almost desperately closer to him. "That's why you're my favorite witch." A cold, emotionless smirk pulled the corners of his mouth upward as he took a step back, separating his body from hers. "Now, Love, where are my dogs?"

*LIT*

"Don't get back on interstate-70," the dhampir instructed as Jared followed her directions, her voice almost casual as if she were ordering around a nineteenth century servant. "It'll take us too far north. Take I-65 to Richmond, and then we can take the back roads the rest of the way to Mystic Falls."

It still surprised him how well she knew the roads, especially when he got lost just staying in the middle lane of the freeway. Absently, he began to wonder how much the small town had changed in the near two centuries since he'd last been there. All he truly remembered of his trip there were the woman Elijah had sent him to watch over and her soon-to-be husband. He remembered that he wasn't to put her in any danger or let anything dangerous get anywhere near her. In essence, he'd been a hired bodyguard.

"Why are you in America, anyway?" His great niece's words pulled him from his thoughts as he followed the directions she continued to give him. Didn't she ever just stop talking for five minutes? "I mean, since you're usually in Europe. Were you on a job?"

Jared glanced over at her, shaking his head. He shouldn't have to put up with immortal teenagers or their endless questions. He shouldn't have to answer any of them or even acknowledge that they were being asked. "It depends on what you mean by a job," he answered simply, trying to speak as little as possible until he could drop her off in Mystic Falls and get on the first flight back to the Old World. "I mean, I was looking for someone, yes, but it was more of a personal vendetta." The vampire paused for a moment, shaking his head again as he looked over at her. "And what I said earlier, about the last time I was here; I meant for a job. I come back every once in a while to visit Tia, but I usually stay in Denver."

"How do you know Tia?"

They were back to Ziela's game of Twenty Questions. Fantastic.

"I was good friends with her uncle…"

"_Didn't we discuss that using your vampire abilities is unfair?"_

"_Your bite is worse than your bark," Jared reminded his friend as he pushed himself to his feet. "If you can take me out, it's a guarantee you'll make the team." Before he could say anything more, the werewolf grabbed the football from his hands and ran across the yard at a tame, human speed. "Lucas!"_

_They ended up in a heap on the ground as the laughed, the vampire looking up when the door to the house opened, a younger girl running out to sit in the grass beside them. "Mom made cookies; they're inside."_

_Ana was Lucas's younger sister by two years, but they looked like they could be twins. Her hair was dark brown, only a shade and a half lighter than her brother's own jet black locks, and their skin was the exact same olive tan. The two had known Jared as long as they could remember, just as every generation of Daltons since they'd moved out west in the 1800's._

"_Jared's helping me get ready for football team tryouts tomorrow, Ana. We'll come inside and eat cookies later."_

_The young girl pouted and stuck her tongue out at her brother as she stood, shaking her head stubbornly. "Fine, but mom wants you inside for time for dinner."_

"You knew her mom and uncle in the '80s?"

Jared visibly sighed at yet another one of his great niece's questions, shaking his head. "And her grandparents in the '60s. And every generation before that all the way back to the 1850's." The vampire kept his gaze on the road as he navigated the highway, resisting the urge to glance over at her. "Enough questions. The more I can focus on the road, the sooner we can get to Mystic Falls."

*LIT*

The near endless giggling from the bathroom was almost enough to make Elena want to rip her hair out. What was so funny that they had to laugh while Rebekah was doing Lilith's hair? When she walked in to investigate exactly what was so funny, the doppelganger only caught the tail end of the conversation.

"Elijah got _pantsed_?" The younger vampire shook her head as she laughed; the image of her least favorite Original that the sentence created was too hilarious to not at least let out a giggle of delight. "It sucks that cameras weren't around back then; it would have gotten _so _many hits on YouTube. It could have been viral."

Nodding in agreement with the statement, the blonde Original stepped back to admire her work on the former dhampir's hair. "Maybe we can convince Nik to reenact it when that pesky dagger is pulled out."

"_Fantastic_." Lilith's voice was high with suppressed excitement as she looked closely at her pinned up curls. "I can't wait for the show."

*LIT*

"So, Salvatores, I assume you were inquiring for my assistance when you awakened me, and I know that my temporary disappearance was an inconvenience to you both." Damon and Stefan shared a glance as the Original spoke, neither of them willing to step away from the meager protection of the other or speak up to ask the much older vampire a quiet question. "I can kill Niklaus, and I will. All I require is Niklaus's location."

There was a short pause as the younger Salvatore brother shook his head. He couldn't tell anyone where Klaus was under the compulsion, so how could they get Mikael's help in defeating him? There was only one thing he asked of them, and they couldn't provide it because he hadn't been smart enough to consume vervain. "He's compelled." His brother's words interrupted Stefan's thoughts, the strained tone making him turn to see the hunter's fist hidden in the vampire's chest cavity. "He can't tell you."

Pain made it almost impossible for Damon to protest as Mikael spoke. "I very well can't kill someone who I can't find, can I?"

"_Stefan_," the elder Salvatore snapped at his brother, urging him to do _something _to get him out of yet another near death situation.

"I can get him back to Mystic Falls."

Stefan's voice was flat, almost completely void of emotion even when the hunter refused to step away from his brother. "Oh? Well, then I suppose we can make a deal." Damon collapsed onto the nearest barstool when Mikael removed his hand from his chest, a cold, emotionless smile of private victory spreading across the Original's features. "Listen closely to my words, boys, because I won't say them again. Get Niklaus to Mystic Falls and I'll drive a stake through his hart. Fail and I'll drive it through yours."

*LIT*

He didn't even try to look over at the blonde asleep on the bed as he shook his head slowly. His imagination hadn't been enough to block out how much he _knew_ this entire rendezvous was wrong. It wasn't like he'd been in a relationship with the young vampire he'd been envisioning in his arms – he hadn't even missed her, not really. So why did he feel like he'd betrayed her by sleeping with the witch? Why did he feel like she'd hate him even more if she discovered his indiscretions?

"Klaus?"

The hybrid jumped at the unexpected voice, turning slowly to face the spell caster in question. Amelia was pretty, yes, but in the way most models were, with golden blonde hair that obviously came from a plastic bottle, eyes bluer than the sky on a clear day, and flawless skin. She was naïve enough to be manipulated, young and innocent and trying ever so desperately to appear like she knew what kind of trouble she was getting herself into. She didn't understand that he could rip her heart out without giving it a second thought.

"Aren't you going to sleep?"

It was moments like these that showed how truly innocent and naïve the young witch was. He didn't stay the night, ever, not with anyone, and certainly not after sex. It gave the wrong impression. "I'm a hybrid, Love; I don't need sleep."

"You can pretend I'm her."

Somehow, this naïve little being in front of him had managed to see right through him, to see into his head and dissect every one of his actions. "Your hair's too light and your eyes are too dark." The offhand retort poured from his lips before he'd oven realized what he was saying and the Original quickly returned to the task of putting his shirt on. "You're too perfect." He shook his head as he turned back to her. "Her lips aren't as full and her nose is a bit small but I don't care." Klaus started toward the door with a shake of his head, fed up with being emotionally profiled by Amelia the teenage witch.

"You sound like you love her."

He didn't pause until he was in the hallway and the bedroom door was closed behind him. The witch's final statement was pushed out of his head almost immediately as he started walking again. What did she know? She was young and wouldn't know what love was if it knocked on her door. He was Niklaus, the cold hearted, remorseless, Original hybrid. He didn't care about anyone except himself, and he certainly didn't love the former dhampir he'd been imagining and referring to before. Whoever said different was delusional and foolish.

*LIT*

"Careful, Stefan, your humanity's showing." The elder Salvatore smirked slightly over his shoulder as he walked with his brother toward the car. After a few hours of pointless drinking and feeding and near death experiences, they were both more than ready to go home. "I kind of wish you'd caved sooner, but that might just be the lingering chest pains talking."

Stefan rolled his eyes at his brother. "We've already had this conversation. My humanity is gone, Damon. It left me when I compelled Andie to face her fear of heights." He shook his head at the elder vampire's barely noticeable flinch. "Or maybe it was when I drained nearly every drop of blood from Lilith's body. Death only makes blood that much sweeter." It was easy to see just how much Damon was fighting the urge to do _something_ to the monster that called himself his brother, and Stefan shook his head. "Careful, brother, your humanity's showing."

In an instant, the older Salvatore's fist connected with the side of his brother's face, sending him to the ground. "Listen and listen close, _brother_," he growled down at him. "My humanity is none of your concern. Either shape up and get back your own damn emotions, or leave and terrorize someone else."

Not offering a hand to help Stefan to his feet, he turned and stalked toward the car. It wasn't his brother's business whether his own switch was flipped or not, it was _his_. If Stefan wanted to be a hypocrite, if he wanted to claim he knew what humanity looked like when he didn't have his, he could do it somewhere else, but Mystic Falls wouldn't tolerate it much longer.

*LIT*

Just when Elena thought she was finally going to be able to escape the two vampires by simply walking out the front door while they were distracted, she heard a sarcastic voice behind her that made the doppelganger stop in her tracks.

"Doth mine eyes deceive me?" The feminine voice asked. "Or does the fair Elena seek escape from our dear home?"

When she turned, Elena had to swallow back a gasp of surprise. The girl before here, the former dhampir she'd come to know and care for, had turned into someone almost unrecognizable. Her smile, once so alive with excitement and innocent wonder, was barely more than a smirk as she strode forward, not even the faintest glimmer of emotion shining in her frozen gaze. "Jeremy texted me," the doppelganger lied shakily, turning to continue toward the door.

The vampire's smirk melted into a grimace of displeasure in an instant. "Departing to the traitor, shadow girl? Then, I beg, banish thineself from mine gaze. May the traitor's dreams fill of demons and creatures of the night.

Rebekah appeared moments before Lilith vanished up the stairs. "I lived in the time of Shakespeare and I didn't understand that last part."

"I hope Jeremy has nightmares," the Salvatore called down to them, providing the needed clarification before allowing a cloak of silence to fall over the boarding house once more.

*LIT*

He opened the door to reveal the youngest Gilbert, his arms crossed as a huff of annoyance pushed past his lips. "Elena said I should avoid the Salvatore place for a while. At least until she warns Damon about the "current situation." Whatever that means." Alaric stepped aside to let him in, closing the door as he watched the boy he was currently in charge of sit down on the couch. "Because vampire ex-girlfriend number three could be anywhere, I'm not allowed out of the house without Elena's permission. My choices were here or the library. You can see what my decision was."

"Good, because I could use your help." The history teacher pulled the teen back to his feet, pushing him toward the small table where multiple photographs of the cave drawings were scattered. "The sun with the two triangles beneath it means vampire; the circle with two triangles here means werewolf. So, logically, the sun and moon with the four triangles means…?"

There was a short pause before Jeremy looked over the pictures with a slight frown. "Hybrid?"

"I knew you weren't entirely hopeless. Now, try to figure out what some of the other symbols mean while I go get something from Bonnie. Do you think you can manage that? Remember, no leaving without your sister's express permission."

*LIT*

"Tell me about your job?"

"Are you doing a high school survey, or something? What's with the twenty questions?"

Ziela rolled her eyes at her uncle's retort, shaking her head. "I have my mother's curiosity, Jared. Answer my questions and I'll do my best to leave you alone."

He sighed and took the Richmond exit, shaking his head. With all of the dhampir's knowledge of the United States highway system, they'd taken short cuts that would skim almost a week from their trip. "Fine. I have my compass, which you know, and it points me toward whoever I'm looking for. It was a gift, actually…"

_Kol's frown deepened with each minute longer it took for Jared to finish his conversation with the strange woman and the smell of burning sage only grew stronger. Did it really take so long to tell someone that you were busy and couldn't stick around for long? And why did someone feel the need to put a privacy spell over the area? It wasn't as if he was eavesdropping._

_The privacy spell kept him from having any fun._

_It seemed like forever before Jared finally returned, his hands fumbling to stuff something into the confines of his clothes as he approached his sire. "My apologies, Kol. The conversation lasted longer than intended."_

"So, it was a gift from a powerful witch? Someone strong enough to do a privacy spell?"

"I thought twenty questions was over?" He asked the dhampir, arching a brow. "Can I finish, now?" Ziela nodded once, giving him the silent signal to continue. "As I was saying, a witch put a spell on it so that it would lead me to whoever I was looking for. It was payment for my first job."

_His eyes scanned the small tent. A white cloth was draped over the small table in the center of the room, and the air was thick with hot smoke. "I really should be going," he tried, looking over at the older woman when she took her seat. "Kol won't wait for very long and I wouldn't be shocked if he left without me."_

"_It will only take a few moments, Jared." Before he could protest further, she produced an object from her flowing sleeve, the bronze metal glittering in the light from a candle. "This compass will lead you to a man. His name is Alexander, and I want him dead."_

_She pushed the compass into his hand firmly and he met her eyes with a confused frown. "How will I know when I find him?"_

"_You'll know, Jared. I know I've found the right person."_

"I never found Alexander," he said with a shrug, turning into a parking lot to park. "One day, the compass stopped pointing toward anything. It didn't move at all. I assumed it was because someone got to him first."

*LIT*

A wide grin had already spread across Rebekah's features before she dropped down onto the couch. "Tomorrow, I'll show you more of a good time, Salvatore. And then we can have even more fun at that homecoming dance."

"We can, and we shall," the Salvatore grinned as she dropped down beside the Original. They'd spent at least three hours draining even more of Damon's bourbon supply and turning the music louder and louder while the blonde told stories of the arguments and trouble her brothers used to get into, and the day had been more entertaining than it should have been. "We can help each other get ready."

Neither of them turned when the front door opened, or when Damon walked over to turn off the music while Stefan climbed the stairs silently. "What the hell are you doing? Do you _want_ Liz to come and fine us because someone filed a noise complaint? I expected this of Rebekah or Stefan, maybe, but not _you_," he exclaimed, waving a hand toward his daughter. It was ridiculous; he'd wrongfully put his trust in the blonde Original so that he wouldn't have to worry about his miserable, hung-over daughter, not so he could come home to more problems. "Go, Rebekah," he said with a deep frown, turning his attention to the older vampire. "This isn't your business." The moment the Original was out of the room, he turned to Lilith again, shaking his head. "I'm out of town for _one day_, and you practically destroy the house?

"First of all, that is severely irresponsible, and you can be certain I won't be letting you stay home on your own again, especially not with Rebekah around. You're not going to homecoming; you _will_ be going to school; I'm locking my alcohol up. Stop drinking all my bourbon. Alcohol doesn't solve your problems."

"Hypocrite." There was no hesitation in her response as she stood shaking her head. "You use alcohol to ignore the real world all the time. How is me wanting to forget about Jeremy any different?" Shaking her head, Lilith stomped toward the stairs. "I'm going to bed. Keep drowning your sorrows in something that won't solve your problems."

*LIT*

Jeremy let himself fall back onto the couch as he shook his head, watching the door. After five hours, he'd finally managed to decode almost all of the minimalistic images, but it left him exhausted. His options were to crash on Alaric's couch for the night, or try to drive how without falling asleep – the latter would probably get him killed.

With a sigh, he waited impatiently for the aforementioned history teacher to return, his eyes slowly falling shut.

*LIT*

The first thing Elena noticed when she opened the door was the piece of paper in Damon's hand. "Your brother has quite the tab going," he commented, not waiting for her to invite him in to step inside. "Where is Ric's apprentice, anyway? If he doesn't start paying soon, I'll have to charge him interest."

A frown crossed over the doppelganger's features as she pushed the door closed, shaking her head. "He's not here. He's staying at Ric's for the night. How much does he owe you? I'll give you some of it."

"Two hundred fifty six dollars and seventy three cents," the vampire said with a shake of his head. "And _he_ will pay it all. You have college to save up for. You also owe me your own debt; I want an explanation as to why my daughter suddenly felt like becoming Little Miss No Emotions and drinking more of my bourbon. I added the new charges to MiniGilbert's tab already, by the way."

Elena frowned and snatched the paper from the Salvatore's hand. "Half of this isn't even alcohol. Why does he have to pay for someone to clean your rugs?"

"Because _someone_ nearly destroyed them when she was _drunk out of her mind_." He paused, glancing over her shoulder at the clock. "Why are you even awake? It's almost eleven o' clock at night; you shouldn't be up." With a frown, he pushed her toward the stairs. "You tell me what you found out about Rebekah and then sleep. We can talk more in the morning."

She paused for a moment before letting the vampire push her along, her parted lips releasing a sigh of defeat. "Fine. But you're staying _on top_ of the blankets."

*LIT*

He had already left Amelia and the northwest far behind him with no hesitation. He'd only managed to turn a dozen or so hybrids before the conversation with the witch made him flee, and he was more than bored as he drove. Before he could even process his thoughts and decisions, his cell phone was in his hand and he was dialing the number he remembered unnecessarily.

There was no reason for him to call _her _of all people, but his fingers seemed to dial on their own before his hand forced the phone to his ear. He didn't _want_ to call her, especially not while his conversation with Amelia was fresh in his mind, and wished he'd learned some sort of control so that he wouldn't be in the situation in the first place.

"What?"

Her voice was cold and impatient, and the single syllable was slurred with overconsumption of alcohol. Oh, how much he wanted to know what exactly it was that made her drink so much when she wouldn't have more than a few shots all summer. Klaus had to force his own voice to be just as uncaring as hers when he finally spoke, far too amused by her intoxication. "Hello there, Love."

There was a short silence over the line as he listened to her breath hitch, the same images he'd created during his rendezvous with the witch returning to his mind unbidden. "What do you want, Klaus?"

"So many questions from you, Little Miss Darkside," he shook his head as he spoke, a slow smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. He certainly couldn't tell her what he truly wanted without spiking her fury or his own already immature thoughts. "I hear it's homecoming weekend in Mystic Falls." His lie was smooth as he tried to return his attention to the road instead of the steady rhythm of her breathing through the phone. "Do me a favor, Love, and save me a dance."

**A/N**

**7761 words. Longest chapter yet! I seem to be writing more and more for each chapter lately, and I even gave you guys some Kilith because I felt extremely deprived. At least I have twitter. Today is my last day of my senior year, but I'll be busy for the next few weeks without time to write. I'll get chapter nine posted as soon as possible!**

**Me: Shakespeare! *le undagger***

**Elijah: We've discussed this, Alexa; it's prohibidado. I said it in Spanish. How much clearer could I have been?**

**Me: A lot.**

**Elijah: Whatever. TheDhampir does not own the Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. It belongs to LJ Smith, Julie Plec, and the CW.**

**Me: Can I ask questions now?**

**Elijah: Why not?**

**Me: When giving your joys of fatherhood speech to Klaus, were you thinking of Mary?**

**Elijah: Oh, would you look at the time? I really should be going.**

**Me: But–**

**Elijah: *le dagger***

**Me: …**

**Elijah: x.x**

**Me: I'm going to take that as a "yes."**

**Peace In!**


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